■  Sh'e otogical  JSxttunatg, 

PBINC&TON,  N.  J. 

1 

BX  5133    .S68  S4  1844  v.l 
South,  Robert,  1634-1716. 
Sermons  preached  upon 
several  occasions 

i  ■  i 

The  John  Ma  Krebs  Donation. 

• 


Digitized  by 

the  Internet  Archive* 

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'  4 

https://archive.org/details/sermonspreachedu01sout_0 


SERMONS 


PREACHED  UPON 


SEVERAL  OCCASIONS. 

BY  ROBERT  SOUTH,  D.D. 

PREBENDARY  OF  WESTMINSTER,  AND  CANON  OF  CHRIST  CHURCH,  OXFORD. 


A  NEW  EDITION,  EN  FOUR  VOLUMES, 

INCLUDING 

THE  POSTHUMOUS  DISCOURSES. 
VOL.  I. 


PHILADELPHIA : 
SORIN  &  BALL,  311  MARKET  STREET. 

STEREOTYPED    BY    L.  JOHNSON. 

1844. 


STEREOTYPED  BY  L.  JOHNSON. 
PRINTED   BY  T.  K.  &  P.  G.  COLLINS,  PHILADELPHIA. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  subject  of  pulpit  eloquence  is  exciting  so  much  of 
the  attention  of  theological  students  at  the  present  day, 
that  the  publisher  of  this  edition  of  the  sermons  of  Dr. 
South  believes  he  is  performing  an  acceptable  service,  by 
presenting  them  in  a  form  and  at  a  price  which  will  now 
bring  them  within  the  reach  of  all  classes. 

Dr.  South  was  a  divine  raised  up  and  endowed  with 
talents  and  abilities  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  critical  period 
when  he  lived.  Remarkable  for  a  combination  of  qualities 
rarely  found  together ;  for  originality  of  conception  ;  for 
keenness  of  argument;  for  boldness  of  reproof;  for  se- 
verity of  sarcasm,  and  for  playfulness  of  wit ;  but,  above 
all,  for  the  most  earnest  and  fervent  desire  for  the  glory 
of  God  in  the  salvation  of  his  fellow-men  ;  it  is  scarcely 
possible  to  peruse  his  Discourses  without  becoming  re- 
freshed and  nerved  with  their  rich  and  glowing  eloquence. 
"His  judgment,"  says  an  eminent  writer,*  "  was  penetrat- 
ing, and  his  knowledge  extensive.  He  did  honour  to  his 
age  and  country,  I  could  almost  say  to  human  nature 
itself.  He  possessed  at  once  all  those  extraordinary  talents 
that  were  divided  amongst  the  greatest  authors  of  antiquity; 
he  had  the  sound,  distinct,  comprehensive  knowledge  of 
Aristotle,  with  all  the  beautiful  lights,  graces,  and  embel- 


*  In  the  Tatler. 


iii 


iv 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


lishments  of  Cicero.  One  does  not  know  which  to  admire 
most  in  his  writings,  the  strength  of  reason,  force  of  style, 
or  brightness  of  imagination.  In  short,  the  best  way  to 
praise  him  .is  to  quote  him.  In  all  his  writings  will  be 
found  the  divine,  the  orator,  the  casuist,  and  the  Christian. " 

The  present  edition  contains  all  the  sermons  published 
during  the  life  of  Dr.  South,  reprinted  from  the  edition  of 
1737,  in  six  volumes.  Also  the  Posthumous  Discourses, 
published  in  1744,  under  the  superintendence  of  Dr.  Wil- 
liam King,  Principal  of  St.  Mary  Hall,  Oxford,  in  five 
volumes.  The  three  discourses  published  in  1717,  by 
Edmund  Curll,  have  also  been  added,  of  which  some 
account  is  given  in  the  advertisement  prefixed  to  them,  in 
vol.  iv.  page  489. 

This  edition  is  accompanied  with  a  very  copious  and 
carefully  collated  Index  of  all  the  principal  matters  con- 
tained in  the  volumes,  which  cannot  fail  of  being  accepta- 
ble not  only  to  the  general  reader,  but  especially  to  the 
student,  as  furnishing  an  easy  mode  of  reference  to  the 
almost  boundless  diversity  of  topics  which  in  the  course 
of  his  ministry  he  either  illustrated  or  enforced. 

March  1,  1843. 


« 


THE 


CHIEF  HEADS  OF  THE  SERMONS. 


VOL.  I. 


SERMON  I. 

the  wats  of  wisdom!  are  wats  of  pleas aktxess. 
Prov.  hi.  17. 

Her  trays  are  tcays  of  pleasantness.    P.  3. 

Some  objections  against  this  truth  are  removed,  4 — 9,  and  the  duty  of 
repentance  represented  under  a  mixture  of  sweetness,  8,  9. 
The  excellencies  of  the  pleasure  of  wisdom  are  enumerated : 

I.  As  it  is  the  pleasure  of  the  mind.  9,  in  reference,  1.  To  speculation,  i7>., 
on  the  account  of  the  greatness,  10,  and  newness  of  the  objects,  ib.  2.  To 
practice,  11. 

II.  As  it  never  satiates  and  wearies,  12.  The  comparison  of  other  pleasures 
with  it;  such  as  that  of  an  epicure,  ib.,  that  of  ambition,  13,  that  of  friendship 
and  conversation,  14. 

III.  As  it  is  in  nobody's  power,  but  only  in  his  that  has  it,  15,  which  property 
and  perpetuity  is  not  to  be  found  in  worldly  enjoyments,  15,  16. 

A  consequence  is  drawn  against  the  absurd  austerities  of  the  Romish  pro- 
fession, 16. 

A  short  description  of  the  religious  pleasure,  17. 

SERMON  II. 

OF   THE   CREATIOX  OF  XAX  IX  THE   IX AGE    OF  GOD. 
Gex.  I.  27. 

So  God  created  man  in  his  oicn  imase:  in  the  image  of  God  created  he  hinu 

P.  SI. 

The  several  false  opinions  of  the  heathen  philosophers  concerning  the 
original  of  the  world,  21. 

The  image  of  God  in  man  considered.  22. 

L  Wherein  it  does  not  consist,  adequately  and  formally;  not  in  power  and 
dominion,  as  the  Socinians  erroneouslv  assert,  ib. 

II.  Wherein  it  does  consist:  1.  In  the  universal  rectitude  of  all  the  faculties 
of  the  soul,  23.  viz.  of  his  understanding,  ft,  both  speculative,  24,  25,  and 
practical,  25.  Of  his  will,  26.  concerning  the  freedom  of  it,  27.  Of  his  passions, 
28.  Love,  ib.  Hatred.  29.  Anger,  ib.  Joy,  ib.  Sorrow,  ib.  Hope,  30.  Fear. 
ib.  2.  In  those  characters  of  majestv  that  God  imprinted  upon  his  body, 
31,  32.  r 

Vol.  Lay 


VI 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I. 


The  consideration  of  the  irreparable  loss  sustained  in  the  fall  of  our  first 
parents,  32,  33,  and  of  the  excellency  of  Christian  religion,  designed  by  God 
to  repair  the  breaches  of  our  humanity,  33. 


SERMON  III. 
interest  deposed,  and  truth  restored. 
Matt.  x.  33. 

But  ichosoever  shall  deny  me  before  men,  him  icill  I  deny  before  my  Father  ivhich 
is  in  heaven.    P.  36. 

The  occasion  of  those  words  inquired  into,  36,  and  their  explication,  by 
being  compared  with  other  parallel  scriptures,  37,  and  some  observations 
deduced  from  them,  38. 

The  explication  of  them,  by  showing, 

I.  How  many  ways  Christ  and  his  truths  may  be  denied,  39.  1.  By  an  here- 
tical judgment,  39,  40.    2.  By  oral  expressions,  40.    3.  By  our  actions,  41. 

What  denial  is  intended  by  these  words,  42. 

II.  The  causes  inducing  men  to  deny  Christ  in  his  truths,  42.  1.  The 
seeming  absurdity  of  many  truths,  ib.  2.  Their  unprofitableness,  43,  44.  3. 
Their  apparent  danger,  45. 

III.  How  far  a  man  may  consult  his  safety,  in  time  of  persecution,  without 
denying  Christ,  46.  1.  By  withdrawing  his  person,  ib.  2.  By  concealing  his 
judgment,  ib. 

When  those  ways  of  securing  ourselves  are  not  lawful,  47. 

IV.  What  is  meant  by  Christ's  denial  of  us,  48,  with  reference,  1.  To  the 
action  itself,  ib.    2.  To  its  circumstances,  49. 

V.  How  many  uses  may  be  drawn  from  the  words,  50.  1.  An  exhortation, 
chiefly  to  persons  in  authority,  to  defend  Christ  in  his  truth,  ib.,  and  in  his 
members,  51.  2.  An  information,  to  show  us  the  danger  as  well  as  baseness 
of  denying  Christ,  ib. 


SERMON  IV. 

ecclesiastical  policy  the  best  polict, 

1  Kings  xiii.  33,  34. 

After  this  thing  king  Jeroboam  returned  not  from  his  evil  way,  but  made  again  of  the 
lowest  of  the  people  priests  of  the  high  places.  Whosoever  icould,  he  consecrated 
him,  and  he  became  one  of  the  priests  of  the  high  places.  And  this  thing  became 
sin  unto  the  house  of  Jeroboam,  even  to  cut  it  off,  and  to  destroy  it  from  off  the 
face  of  the  earth.    P.  53. 

Jeroboam's  history  and  practice,  53.    Some  observations  from  it,  55.  An 
explication  of  the  words,  "high  places,"  ib.;  and  consecration,  56. 
The  sense  of  the  words  drawn  into  two  propositions, 

I.  The  means  to  strengthen  or  to  ruin  the  civil  power  is  either  to  establish 
or  destroy  the  right  worship  of  God,  57.  Of  which  proposition  the  truth  is 
proved  by  all  records  of  divine  and  profane  history,  ib. ;  and  the  reason  is 
drawn  from  the  judicial  proceeding  of  God;  and  from  the  dependence  of  the 
principles  of  government  upon  religion,!/). 

From  which  may  be  inferred,  1.  The* pestilential  design  of  disjoining  the 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  interest,  61.  2.  The  danger  of  any  thing  that  may 
make  even  the  true  religion  suspected  to  be  false,  62. 

II.  The  way  to  destroy  religion  is  to  embase  the  dispensers  of  it,  63:  which 
is  done,  1.  By  divesting  them  of  all  temporal  privileges  and  advantages,  ib. 
2.  By  admitting  unworthy  persons  to  this  function,  66.    By  which  means, 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I.  vil 

1«  Ministers  are  brought  under  contempt,  68 ;  2.  Men  of  fit  parts  and  abilities 
are  discouraged  from  undertaking  the  ministry,- 70. 
A  brief  recapitulation  of  the  whole,  71. 

SERMON  V. 

THE  DUTIES  OF  THE  EPISCOPAL  FUNCTION". 

Titus  ei.  ult. 

These  things  speak,  and  exhort,  and  rebuke  with  all  authority.    Let  no  man  despise 

thee.    P.  75. 

Titus  supposed  to  be  a  bishop  in  all  this  epistle,  76.  The  duties  of  which 
place  are, 

I.  To  teach,  76 ;  either  immediately  by  himself,  78,  or  mediately  by  the  sub- 
ordinate ministration  of  others,  ib. 

II.  To  rule,  79,  by  an  exaction  of  duty  from  persons  under  him,  ib.,  by  a 
protection  of  the  persons  under  the  discharge  of  their  duty,  80  ;  and  by  animad- 
version upon  such  as  neglect  it,  ib. 

And  the  means  better  to  execute  those  duties  is,  not  to  be  despised,  82  ;  in  the 
handling  of  which  prescription  these  things  may  be  observed: 

1.  The  ill  effects  that  contempt  has  upon  government,  82.  2.  The  causes 
upon  which  church-rulers  are  frequently  despised.    And  they  are, 

Either  groundless;  such  as  their  very  profession  itself,  84;  loss  of  their 
former  grandeur  and  privilege,  85. 

Or  just;  such  as  ignorance,  85;  viciousness,  86;  fearfulness,  ib. ;  and  a 
proneness  to  despise  others,  87. 

The  character  of  a  clergyman,  88. 

SERMON  VI. 

why  Christ's  doctrine  was  rejected  by  the  jews. 
John  vii.  17. 

If  any  man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God,  or 
whether  I  speak  of  myself.    P.  89. 

An  account  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  economy,  89. 

The  gospel  must  meet  with  a  rightly  disposed  will,  before  it  can  gain  the 
assent  of  the  understanding,  90;  which  will  appear  from  the  following  con- 
siderations : 

I.  What  Christ's  doctrine  is,  with  relation  to  matters  of  belief,  91 ;  and  to 
matters  of  practice,  ib. 

II.  That  men's  unbelief  of  that  doctrine  wasvfrom  no  defect  in  the  argu- 
ments, 92 ;  whose  strength  was  sufficient,  from  the  completion  of  all  the  pre- 
dictions, 93,  and  the  authority  of  miracles,  ib.  And  whose  insufficiency  (if 
there  could  have  been  any)  was  not  the  cause  of  the  unbelief  of  the  Jews. 
94,  who  assented  to  things  less  evident,  ib.;  neither  evident  nor  certain,  but 
only  probable,  ib.;  neither  evident,  nor  certain,  nor  probable,  but  false  and 
fallacious,  95. 

III.  That  the  Jewish  unbelief  proceeded  from  the  pravity  of  the  will,  influ- 
encing the  understanding  to  a  disbelief  of  Christianity,  95;  the  last  being  pre- 
possessed with  other  notions  ;  and  the  first  being  wholly  governed  by  covetous- 
ness  and  ambition,  96. 

IV.  That  a  well-disposed  mind,  with  a  readiness  to  obey  the  will  of  God,  is 
the  best  means  to  enlighten  the  understanding  to  a  belief  of  Christianity,  97 ; 
upon  the  account  both  of  God's  goodness,  ib.,  and  of  a  natural  efficiency,  9S, 
arising  from  a  right  disposition  of  the  will,  which  will  engage  the  understanding 
in  the  search  of  the  truth  through  diligence,  ib.,  and  impartiality,  100. 

From  which  particulars  may  be  learned,  I.  The  true  cause  of  atheism  and 
scepticism,  101.  2.  The  most  effectual  means  of  becoming  good  Christians,  102. 


Vlll 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I. 


SERMON  VII. 

god's  peculiar  regard  to  peaces  set  APART  FOR  DIVIDE  WORSHIP. 

PSAEM  LXXXVII.  2. 

God  hath  loved  the  gates  of  Sion  more  than  all  the  dwellings  of  Jacob.    P.  106. 

All  comparisons  import,  in  the  superior  part  of  them,  difference  and  pre-emi- 
nence, 106,  and  so  from  the  comparison  of  this  text  arise  these  propositions: 

I.  That  God  bears  a  different  respect  to  consecrated  places  from  what  he 
bears  to  all  others,  106.  Which  difference  he  shows,  1.  By  the  interposals  of 
his  Providence  for  the  erecting  and  preserving  of  them,  ib.  2.  By  his 
punishments  upon  the  violators  of  them,  109.  3.  Not  upon  the  account  of 
any  inherent  sanctity  in  the  things  themselves ;  but  because  he  has  the  sole 
property  of  them,  112 ;  by  appropriating  them  to  his  peculiar  use,  113;  and 
by  deed  of  gift  made  by  surrender  on  man's  part,  ib. ;  and  by  acceptance  on 
his,  114. 

II.  That  God  prefers  the  worship  paid  to  him  in  such  places  above  that  in 
all  others,  116;  because,  1.  Such  places  are  naturally  apt  to  excite  a  greater 
devotion,  ib.  2.  In  them  our  worship  is  a  more  direct  service  and  homage  to 
him,  118. 

From  all  which  we  are  taught  to  have  these  three  ingredients  in  our  devo- 
tion; desire,  reverence,  and  confidence,  120. 

SERMON  VIII. 

ALE  CONTINGENCIES  UNDER  THE  DIRECTION  OF  GOD's  PROVIDENCE. 
Prov.  XVI.  33. 

The  lot  is  cast  into  the  lap;  but  the  whole  disposing  of  it  is  of  the  Lord.    P.  121. 

God's  providence  has  its  influence  upon  all  things,  even  the  most  fortuitous, 
such  as  the  casting  of  lots,  121.  Which  things  implying  in  themselves  some- 
what future,  and  somewhat  contingent,  are, 

I.  In  reference  to  men,  out  of  the  reach  of  their  knowledge  and  of  their 
power,  121. 

II.  In  reference  to  God,  comprehended  by  a  certain  knowledge,  122;  and 
governed  by  as  certain  a  providence,  123;  and  by  him  directed  to  both  certain, 
123,  and  great  ends,  125;  in  reference, 

1.  To  societies  or  united  bodies  of  men,  125.  2.  To  particular  persons, 
whether  public,  as  princes,  128;  or  private,  touching  their  lives,  130,  health,  ib., 
reputation,  131,  friendships,  132,  employments,  ib. 

Therefore  we  ought  to  rely  on  divine  providence;  and  be  neither  too  con- 
fident in  prosperity,  134,  nor  too  despondent  in  adversity,  135,  but  carry  a 
conscience  clear  towards  God,  who  is  the  sole  and  absolute  disposer  of  all 
things,  136. 

SERMON  IX. 

THE  WISDOM  OF  THIS  WOHLD. 
1  COR.  III.  19. 

For  the  wisdom  of  this  vwld  is  foolishness  with  God.    P.  137. 

Worldly  wisdom,  in  scripture,  is  taken  sometimes  for  philosophy,  137;  some- 
times, as  here,  for  policy,  ib. ;  which, 

I.  Governs  its  actions  generally  by  these  rules,  138.  1.  By  a  constant 
dissimulation;  not  a  bare  concealment  of  one's  mind;  but  a  man's  positive 
professing  what  he  is  not,  and  resolves  not  to  be,  ib.  2.  By  submitting 
conscience  and  religion  to  one's  interest,  140.  3.  By  making  one's  self  the 
sole  end  of  all  actions,  141.  4.  By  having  no  respect  to  friendship,  gratitude, 
or  sense  of  honour,  142. 

Which  rules  and  principles  are, 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I. 


ix 


II.  Foolish  and  absurd  in  reference  to  God,  144 ;  because  in  the  pursuit  of 
them  man  pitches,  1.  Upon  an  end  unproportionable  to  the  measure  of  his 
duration,  144,  or  to  the  vastness  of  his  desires,  145.  2.  Upon  means  in 
themselves  insufficient  for,  146,  and  frequently  contrary  to  the  attaining  of 
such  ends,  147 ;  which  is  proved  to  happen  in  the  four  foregoing  rules  of  the 
worldly  politician,  148. 

Therefore  we  ought  to  be  sincere,  152,  and  commit  our  persons  and  concerns 
to  the  wise  and  good  providence  of  God,  152. 

SERMON  X. 

good  intentions  no  excuse  for  bad  actions. 

2  Corinthians  viii.  12. 

For  if  there  first  be  a  willing  mind,  it  is  accepted  according  to  that  a  man  hath,  and 
not  according  to  that  he  hath  not.    P.  153. 

Men  are  apt  to  abuse  the  world  and  themselves  in  some  general  principles 
of  action;  and  particularly  in  this,  that  God  accepts  the  will  for  the  deed, 
153.  The  delusion  of  which  is  laid  open  in  these  words,  ib.,  expressing,  that 
where  there  is  no  power  God  accepts  the  will ;  but  implying,  that  where 
there  is  he  does  not.  So  there  is  nothing  of  so  fatal  an  import  as  the  plea  of 
a  good  intention,  and  of  a  good  will,  154;  for  God  requires  the  obedience  of 
the  whole  man,  and  never  accepts  the  will  but  as  such,  156.  Thence  we  may 
understand  how  far  it  holds  good,  that  God  accepts  the  will  for  the  deed,  ib. ;  a 
rule  whose 

1.  Ground  is  founded  upon  that  eternal  truth,  that  God  requires  of  man 
nothing  impossible,  158  ;  and  consequently  whose 

2.  Bounds  are  determined  by  what  power  man  naturally  hath,  158;  but 
whose 

3.  Misapplication  consists  in  these,  158.  1.  That  men  often  mistake  for  an 
act  of  the  will,  what  rer.lly  is  not  so,  ib.,  as  a  bare  approbation,  ib.;  wishing 
159;  mere  inclination,  160.  2.  That  men  mistake  for  impossibilities,  things 
which  are  not  truly  so,  161 ;  as  in  duties  of  very  great  labour,  ib.,  danger,  162, 
cost,  165,  in  conquering  an  inveterate  habit,  168. 

Therefore  there  is  not  a  weightier  case  of  conscience  than  to  know  how 
far  God  accepts  the  will,  and  when  men  truly  will  a  thing,  and  have  really 
no  power,  169. 

SERMON  XL 

of  the  origin,  nature,  and  baseness  of  the  sin  of  ingratitude. 
Judges  viii.  34,  35. 

And  the  children  of  Israel  remembered  not  the  Lord  their  God,  tcho  had  delivered 
them  out  of  the  hands  of  all  their  enemies  on  every  side:  neither  shoiccd  they 
kindness  to  the  house  of  Jerubbaal,  namely,  Gideon,  according  to  all  the  goodness 
which  he  had  showed  unto  Israel.    P.  171. 

The  history  of  Gideon,  and  the  Israelites'  behaviour  towards  him,  171,  are 
the  subject  and  occasion  of  these  words,  which  treat  of  their  ingratitude  both 
towards  God  and  man,  172.  This  vice  in  this  latter  sense  is  .described,  ib., 
by  showing, 

I.  What  gratitude  is,  173;  what  are  its  parts,  ib.;  what  grounds  it  hath  in 
the  law  of  nature,  174,  of  God's  word,  175,  of  man,  176. 

II.  The  nature  and  baseness  of  ingratitude,  178. 

III.  That  ingratitude  proceeds  from  a  proneness  to  do  ill  turns,  with  a  com- 
placency upon  the  sight  of  any  mischief  befalling  another;  and  from  an  utter 
insensibility  of  all  kindnesses,  179. 

IV.  That  it  is  always  attended  with  many  other  ill  qualities,  180;  pride,  ib,, 
hard-heartedness,  182,  and  falsehood,  183.  Therefore, 

V.  What  consequences  may  be  drawn  from  the  premises,  184.  1.  Never 
to  enter  into  a  league  of  friendship  with  an  ungrateful  person,  ib.  Because, 


X 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I. 


2.  He  cannot  be  altered  by  any  acts  of  kindness,  ib. ;  and,  3.  He  has  no  true 
sense  of  religion,  185.    Exhortation  to  gratitude  as  a  debt  to  God,  186. 

SERMON  XII. 

OF  THE  NATURE,  MALIGNITT,  AND   PERNICIOUS  EFFECTS  OF  FALSEHOOD  AND  LYING. 

Prov.  XII.  32. 

Lying  lips  are  abomination  to  the  Lord.    P.  187. 

The  universality  of  lying  is  described,  187.  And  this  vice  is  further  prose- 
cuted, by  showing, 

I.  The  nature  of  it,  188.  Wherein  it  consists,  and  the  unlawfulness  of  all 
sorts  of  lies,  whether  pernicious,  officious,  or  jocose,  189. 

II.  The  effects  of  it,  192 ;  all  sins  that  came  into  the  world,  192,  all  miseries 
that  befall  mankind,  ib.,  an  utter  dissolution  of  all  society,  195,  an  indisposition 
to  the  impressions  of  religion,  197. 

III.  The  punishments  of  it:  the  loss  of  all  credit,  198;  the  hatred  of  all 
whom  the  liar  has  or  would  have  deceived,  199 ;  and  an  eternal  separation 
from  God,  201. 

All  which  particulars  are  briefly  summed  up,  202. 

SERMON  XIII. 

THE  PRACTICE   OF  RELIGION  ENFORCED   BY  REASON. 
Prov.  X.  9. 

He  that  ivalketh  uprightly,  icalkcth  surely.  P.  207. 
The  life  of  man  is  in  Scripture  expressed  by  walking  ;  which  to  do  surely, 
great  caution  must  be  taken  not  to  lay  down  false  principles,  or  mistake  in 
consequences  from  right  ones,  207;  but  to  walk  uprightly,  under  the  notion 
of  an  infinite  Mind  governing  the  world,  and  an  expectation  of  another  state 
hereafter,  208.  Which  two  principles  will  secure  us  in  all  our  actions, 
whether  they  be  considered, 

I.  As  true,  208.  The  folly  of  a  sinner  presuming  upon  God's  mercy,  210. 
Or  relying  upon  a  future  repentance,  211.    Or  whether  supposed, 

II.  As  only  probable,  212.  No  man,  in  most  temporal  concerns,  acts  upon 
surer  grounds  than  of  probability,  213.  And  self-preservation  will  oblige  a 
man  to  undergo  a  lesser  evil  to  secure  himself  from  the  probability  of  a 
greater,  214.  Probability  supposes  that  a  thing  may  or  may  not  be;  both 
which  are  examined  with  relation  to  a  future  state,  214. 

III.  As  false,  216.  Under  this  supposition  the  virtuous  walketh  more 
surely  than  the  wicked,  with  reference  to  temporal  enjoyments  :  reputation, 
216,  quietness,  217,  health,  218.  Answer  to  an  objection,  that  many  sinners 
enjoy  all  these,  219. 

Thence  we  may  perceive  the  folly  of  atheistical  persons,  220,  and  learn  to 
walk  uprightly,  as  the  best  ground  for  our  present  and  future  happiness,  222. 

SERMON  XIV. 
of  the  superlative  love  of  christ  to  his  disciples. 
John  xv.  15. 

Henceforth  I  call  you  not  servants;  for  the  servant  knows  not  what  his  lord  doeth; 
but  I  have  called  you  friends,  for  all  things  that  I  have  heard  of  my  Father, 
have  I  made  known  unto  you.    P.  224. 

The  superlative  love  of  Christ  appears  in  the  several  degrees  of  his  kindness 
to  man,  before  he  was  created,  224;  when  created,  ib.;  when  fallen,  225; 
whom  even  he  not  only  spared,  but,  from  the  number  of  subjects,  took  into 
the  retinue  of  his  servants,  and  further  advanced  to  the  privilege  of  a  friend, 
ib.    The  difference  between  which  two  appellations  is  this : 

I.  That  a  servant  is  for  the  most  part,  1.  Unacquainted  with  his  master's 


0 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  It 


xi 


designs,  226.  2.  Restrained  with  a  degenerous  awe  of  mind,  227.  3.  Indued 
with  a  mercenary  disposition,  227. 

II.  That  a  friend  is  blessed  with  many  privileges;  as,  1.  Freedom  of 
access,  228.  2.  Favourable  construction  of  all  passages,  229.  3.  Sympathy  in 
joy  and  grief,  231.  4.  Communication  of  secrets,  232.  5.  Counsel  and  advice, 
234.    6.  Constancy  and  perpetuity,  235. 

In  every  one  of  which  particulars,  the  excellency  of  Christ's  friendship 
shining  forth,  236,  we  may  learn  the  high  advantage  of  true  piety,  237. 

SERMONS  XV.  XVI. 

AGAINST   LONG    EXTEXPOR ART  PRATERS. 

Eccles.  v.  2. 

Be  not  rash  with  thy  mouth;  and  let  not  thine  heart  be  hasty  to  utter  any  thing  before 
God :  for  God  is  in  heaven,  and  thou  upon  earth;  therefore  let  thy  words  be  few. 
P.  240. 

Solomon  having  been  spoken  to  by  God  himself,  and  so  the  fittest  to  teach 
us  how  to  speak  to  God,  here  observes  to  us,  that  when  we  are  in  God's 
house,  we  are  more  especially  in  his  presence ;  that  this  ought  to  create  a 
reverence  in  our  addresses  to  him,  and  that  this  reverence  consists  in  the 
preparation  of  our  thoughts,  and  the  government  of  our  expressions,  240; 
the  two  great  joint  ingredients  of  prayer,  ib.    Of  which, 

The  first  is,  premeditation  of  thought,  245. 

The  second  is,  ordering  of  our  words  by  pertinence  and  brevity  of  ex- 
pression, 255. 

Because  prayer  prevails  upon  God; 

Not  as  it  does  with  men  by  way  of  information,  241 ;  persuasion,  ib. ;  impor- 
tunity, ib.    An  objection  to  this  last  is  answered,  244. 

But  as  it  is  the  fulfilling  of  that  condition  upon  which  God  dispenseth  his 
blessings  to  mankind,  242.    An  objection  to  this  is  removed,  ib. 

As  it  is  most  properly  an  act  of  dependence  upon  God,  244;  a  dependence 
not  natural,  but  moral ;  for  else  it  would  belong  indifferently  to  the  wicked  as 
well  as  to  the  just,  ib. 

I.  Premeditation  ought  to  respect,  1.  The  object  of  our  prayers ;  God  and 
his  divine  perfections,  246.  2.  The  matter  of  our  prayers,  247 ;  either  things 
of  absolute  necessity,  as  the  virtues  of  a  pious  life;  or  of  unquestionable 
charity,  as  the  innocent  comforts  of  it,  248.  3.  The  order  and  disposition  of  our 
prayers,  249  :  by  excluding  every  thing  which  may  seem  irreverent,  incoherent, 
and  impertinent;  absurd  and  irrational;  rude,  slight,  and  careless,  249. 

Therefore  all  Christian  churches  have  governed  their  public  worship  by  a 
liturgy  or  set  form  of  prayer,  250.    Which  way  of  praying  is,  truly, 

To  pray  by  the  spirit;  that  is,  with  the  heart,  not  hypocritically ;  and  accord- 
ing to  the  rules  prescribed  by  God's  Holy  Spirit,  not  unwarrantably,  or  by  a  pre- 
tence to  immediate  inspiration,  251. 

Not  to  stint,  but  help  and  enlarge  the  spirit  of  prayer,  252 ;  for  the  soul, 
being  of  a  limited  nature,  cannot  at  the  same  time  supply  two  distinct  facul- 
ties to  the  same  height  of  operation ;  words  are  the  work  of  the  brain  ;  and 
devotion,  properly  the  business  of  the  heart,  indispensably  required  in 
prayer,  253. 

Whereas  on  the  contrary,  extemporary  prayers  stint  the  spirit,  by  calling 
off  the  faculties  of  the  soul  from  dealing  with  the  heart  both  in  the  minister 
and  in  the  people,  253.  And  besides,  they  are  prone  to  encourage  pride  and 
ostentation,  254;  faction  and  sedition,  255. 

II.  Brevity  of  expression  the  greatest  perfection  of  speech,  256  ;  author- 
ized by  both  divine,  ib.,  and  human  examples,  258 ;  suited  best  to  the 
modesty,  259,  discretion,  ib.,  and  respect  required  in  all  suppliants,  260. 
Is  still  further  enforced  in  our  addresses  to  God  by  these  arguments,  260 : 
1.  That  all  the  reasons  for  prolixity  of  speech  with  men  cease  to  be  so  when 


xii 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I. 


we  pray  to  God,  ib.  2.  That  there  are  but  few  things  necessary  to  be 
prayed  for,  264.  3.  That  the  person  who  prays  cannot  keep  up  the  same  fer- 
vour and  attention  in  a  long  as  in  a  short  prayer,  265.  4.  That  shortness  of 
speech  is  the  most  natural  and  lively  way  of  expressing  the  utmost  agonies 
of  the  soul,  266.  5.  That  we  have  examples  in  scripture  both  of  brevity  and 
prolixity  of  speech  in  prayer,  as  of  brevity  in  the  Lord's  prayer,  267;  the 
practice  of  it  in  our  Saviour  himself,  ib. ;  the  success  of  it  in  several  in- 
stances ;  as  of  the  leper,  of  the  blind  man,  and  of  the  publican,  268.  Whereas 
the  heathens  and  the  pharisees,  the  grand  instances  of  idolatry  and  hypocrisy, 
are  noted  for  prolixity,  268. 

By  these  rules  we  may  judge,  1.  Of  our  church's  excellent  liturgy;  for  its 
brevity  and  fulness,  for  the  frequent  opportunity  of  mentioning  the  name  and 
some  great  attribute  of  God;  for  its  alternate  responses,  which  thing  pro- 
perly denominates  it  a  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  269 :  for  appointing  even  a 
form  of  prayer  before  sermons,  270.  2.  Of  the  dissenters'  prayers,  always 
notable  for  length  and  tautology,  incoherence  and  confusion,  271. 

And,  after  this  comparison,  pronounce  our  liturgy  the  greatest  treasure  of 
rational  devotion ;  and  pray  God  would  vouchsafe  long  to  continue  to  us  the 
use  of  it,  272. 

SERMONS  XVII.  XVIII. 

of  the  heinous  guilt  of  taking  pleasure  in  other  jten's  sins. 
Romans  i.  32. 

Who  knowing  the  judgment  of  God,  that  they  which  commit  such  things  are  worthy 
of  death,  not  only  do  the  same,  but  have  pleasure  in  them  that  do  them.    P.  273. 

The  sin  of  taking  pleasure  in  other  men's  sins  is  not  only  distinct  from, 
but  also  much  greater  than  all  those  others  mentioned  in  the  foregoing  cata- 
logue, 273.  To  arrive  at  which  pitch  of  sinning  there  is  a  considerable  diffi- 
culty, 276 ;  because  every  man  has  naturally  a  distinguishing  sense  of  good 
and  evil,  and  an  inward  satisfaction  or  dissatisfaction  after  the  doing  of 
either,  and  cannot  quickly  or  easily  extinguish  this  principle,  but  by  another 
inferior  principle  gratified  with  objects  contrary  to  the  former,  274,  275. 
And  consequently  no  man  is  quickly  or  easily  brought  to  take  pleasure  in  his 
own,  much  less  in  other  men's  sins,  276.    Of  which  sin, 

I.  The  causes  are,  1.  The  commission  of  the  same  sins  in  one's  own  per- 
son, 276.  2.  The  commission  of  them  against  the  full  conviction  of  con- 
science, 277.  3.  The  continuance  in  them,  279.  4.  The  inseparable  poor- 
spiritedness  of  guilt,  which  is  less  uneasy  in  company,  280.  5.  A  peculiar 
unaccountable  malignity  of  nature,  282. 

II.  The  reasons  why  the  guilt  of  that  sin  is  so  great,  are,  1.  That  there  'is 
naturally  no  motive  to  tempt  men  to  it,  284.  2.  That  the  nature  of  this  sin  is 
boundless  and  unlimited,  286.  3.  That  this  sin  includes,  in  it  the  guilt  of  many 
preceding  ones,  287. 

III.  The  persons  guilty  of  that  sin  are  generally  such  as  draw  others  to  it, 
289 ;  particularly,  1.  Who  teach  doctrines,  ib.,  which  represent  sinful  actions, 
either  as  not  sinful,  290,  or  as  less  sinful  than  they  really  are,  291.  Censure 
of  some  modern  casuists,  292.  2.  Who  allure  men  to  sin  through  formal 
persuasion  or  inflaming  objects,  293.  3.  Who  affect  the  company  of  vicious 
persons,  295.  4.  Who  encourage  others  in  their  sins  by  commendation,  ib.,  or 
preferment,  296. 

Lastly,  the  effects  of  this  sin  are,  1.  Upon  particular  persons;  that  it 
quite  depraves  the  natural  frame  of  the  heart,  297;  it  indisposes  a  man  to 
repent  of  it,  298;  it  grows  the  more,  as  a  man  lives  longer,  ib.;  it  will  damn, 
more  surely,  because  many  are  damned  who  never  arrived  to  this  pitch,  300. 
2.  Upon  communities  of  men ;  that  it  propagates  the  practice  of  any  sin, 
till  it  becomes  national,  ib. ;  especially  where  great  sinners  make  their  depend- 
ents their  proselytes,  301,  and  the  follies  of  the  young  carry  with  them  the 
approbation  of  the  old,  ib.    This  the  reason  of  the  late  increase  of  vice,  302. 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I. 


xiii 


•SERMON  XIX. 

sinners  inexcusable  from  natural  religion  onlt. 

Romans  i.  20. 

So  that  tliey  are  without  excuse.    P.  303. 

The  apostle  in  this  epistle  addresses  himself  chiefly  to  the  Jews;  but  in  this 
first  chapter  he  deals  with  the  Greeks  and  gentiles,  303,  whom  he  charges  with 
an  inexcusable  sinfulness,  303.  And  the  charge  contains  in  this  and  in  the 
precedent  and  subsequent  verses, 

I.  The  sin  [that  knowing  God  they  did  not  glorify  him  as  G6*d,  ver.  21]: 
Idolatry;  not  that  kind  of  one  which  worships  that  for  God  which  is  not  God; 
but  the  other,  which  worships  the  true  God  by  the  meditation  of  corporeal 
resemblances,  304. 

II.  The  persons  guilty  of  this  sin  [such  as  professed  themselves  wise,  ver. 
22] :  not  the  Gnostics,  but  the  old  heathen  philosophers,  305. 

III.  The  cause  of  that  sin  [holding  the  truth  in  unrighteousness,  ver.  18], 
306,  that  the  truths  which  they  were  accountable  for,  viz.  1.  The  being  of  a 
God,  307;  2.  That  he  is  -the  maker  and  governor  of  the  world,  ib.;  3.  That  he 
is  to  be  worshipped,  ib.;  4.  That  he  is  to  be  worshipped  by  pious  practices,  ib.; 
5.  That  every  deviation  from  duty  is  to  be  repented  of,  ib.;  6.  That  every  guilty 
person  is  obnoxious  to  punishment,  308 ; 

Were  by  them  held  in  unrighteousness,  1.  By  not  acting  up  to  what  they 
knew,  308.  2.  By  not  improving  those  known  principles  into  proper  conse- 
quences, 309.    3.  By  concealing  what  they  knew,  310. 

IV.  The  judgment  passed  upon  them  [that  they  were  without  excuse, 
ver.  20],  312 ;  that  they  were  unfit  not  only  for  a  pardon,  but  even  for  a  plea, 
313.  Because, 

1.  The  freedom  of  the  will,  which  they  generally  asserted,  excluded  them 
from  the  plea  of  unwillingness,  313.  2.  The  knowledge  of  their  understand- 
ing excluded  them  from  the  plea  of  ignorance,  314. 

From  all  these  we  may  consider, 

1.  The  great  mercy  of  God  in  the  revelation  of  the  gospel,  315. 

2.  The  deplorable  condition  of  obstinate  sinners  under  it,  317. 

♦   SERMON  XX. 

op  a  worthy  preparation  for  the  sacrament  of  the  eucharist. 
Matt,  xxvii.  12. 

And  he  saith  unto  him,  Friend,  how  earnest  thou  hither,  not  having  a  wedding- 
garment?    P.  318. 

The  design  of  this  parable,  under  the  circumstantial  passages  of  a  wed- 
ding's royal  solemnity,  is  to  set  forth  the  free  offer  of  the  gospel  to  the  Jews 
first,  and,  upon  their  refusal,  to  the  gentiles,  318.  But  it  maybe  more  pecu- 
liarly applied  to  the  holy  Eucharist;  which  not  only  by  analogy,  but  with 
propriety  of  speech,  and  from  the  very  ceremony  of  breaking  bread,  may  very 
well  be  called  a  wedding-supper,  319;  to  the  worthy  participation  whereof 
there  is  indispensably  required  a  suitable  and  sufficient  preparation,  320.  In 
which  these  conditions  are  required; 

1.  That  the  preparation  be  habitual,  323. 

2.  That  it  be  also  actual,  325 ;  of  which  the  principal  ingredients  are,  1. 
Self-examination,  327;  2.  Repentance,  328;  3.  Prayer,  329;  4.  Fasting,  330; 
5.%Alms-giving,  331;  6.  Charitable  temper  of  mind,  332;  7.  Reading  and 
meditation,  333. 

[The  reverend  author  seemed  to  have  designed  another  discourse  upon  this 
text,  because  in  this  sermon  he  only  despatches  the  first  part,  viz.  The  neces- 
sity of  preparation  ;  but  proceeds  not  to  the  second,  viz.  That  God  is  a  severe 
animadverter  upon  such  as  partake  without  such  a  preparation,  320.] 

Vol.  I  h 


xiv 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I. 


SERMON  XXI. 
the  fatal  imposture  and  force  of  words. 
Isaiah  v.  20. 

Woe  unto  them  that  call  evil  good,  and  good  evil.  P.  334. 
[Vol.  ii.  Serm.  xxix.  p.  500.  Serm.  xxx.  p.  519.  Vol.  iii.  Serm.  i.] 
Here  a  woe  is  denounced  against  those,  not  only  in  particular,  who  judi- 
cially pronounce  the  guilty  innocent,  and  the  innocent  guilty;  but,  in  general, 
who,  by  abusing  men's  minds  with  false  notions,  make  evil  pass  for  good, 
and  good  for  evil,  334.  And  in  the  examination  of  this  vile  practice  it  will  be 
necessary, 

I.  To  examine  the  nature  of  good  and  evil,  what  they  are,  and  upon  what 
they  are  founded,  viz.  Upon  the  conformity  or  unconformity  to  right  reason, 
336.  Not  upon  the  opinion,  337,  or  laws  of  men,  ib. ;  because  then,  1.  The 
same  action  under  the  same  circumstances  might  be  both  morally  good  and 
morally  evil,  339.  2.  The  laws  could  neither  be  morally  good  nor  evil,  ib. 
3.  The  same  action  might  be  in  respect  of  the  divine  law,  commanding  it, 
morally  good ;  and,  of  a  human,  forbidding  it,  morally  evil,  ib. 

But  that  the  nature  of  good  and  evil  is  founded  upon  a  jus  naturale,  ante- 
cedent to  all  jus  positivum,  may  be  exemplified  in  those  two  moral  duties, 
towards  God  and  towards  one's  neighbour,  340. 

II.  To  show  the  way  how  good  and  evil  operate  upon  men's  minds,  viz.  by 
their  respective  names  or  appellations,  341. 

III.  To  show  the  mischief  arising  from  the  misapplication  of  names,  342. 
For  since,  1.  The  generality  of  men  are  absolutely  governed  by  words  and 
names,  342.  And,  2.  Chiefly  in  matter  of  good  and  evil,  345 ;  which  are 
commonly  taken  upon  trust,  by  reason  of  the  frequent  affinity  between  vice 
and  virtue,  346  ;  and  of  most  men's  inability  to  judge  exactly  of  things,  ib. 
Thence  may  be  inferred  the  comprehensive  mischief  of  this  misapplication, 
by  which  man  is  either,  1.  deceived,  348 ;  or,  2.  misrepresented,  349. 

Lastly,  To  assign  several  instances,  wherein  those  mischievous  effects  do 
actually  show  themselves.    Vol.  ii.  p.  500. 

I.  In  religion  and  church,  501 ;  such  as  calling,  1.  The  religion  of  the  church 
of  England,  popery,  502 ;  which  calumny  is  confuted,  from  the  carriage 
of  the  church  of  Rome  towards  the  church  of  England,  503 ;  and  from  the 
church  of  England's  denying  the  chief  articles  of  the  church  of  Rome,  503 ; 

2.  Schismatics,  true  protestants,  507;  against  whom  it  is  proved,  that  they 
and  the  papists  are  not  such  irreconcilable  enemies  as  they  pretend  to  be,  507. 

3.  The  last  subversion  of  the  church,  reformation,  510;  which  mistaken 
word  turned  the  monarchy  into  an  anarchy,  510;  4.  The  execution  of  the  laws, 
persecution,  511  ;  by  which  sophistry  the  great  disturbers  of  our  church  pass 
for  innocent,  and  the  laws  are  made  the  only  malefactors,  511 ;  5.  Base  com- 
pliance and  half-conformity,  moderation,  512,  both  in  church  governors,  513, 
and  civil  magistrates,  514. 

A  terrible  instance  of  pulpit-impostors  seducing  the  minds  of  men,  517. 

II.  In  the  civil  government,  520,  522  (with  an  apology  for  a  clergyman's 
treating  upon  this  subject,  520) ;  such  as  calling,  1.  Monarchy,  arbitrary 
power,  523;  2.  The  prince's  friends,  evil  counsellors,  526;  3.  The  enemies 
both  of  prince  and  people,  public  spirits,  528 ;  4.  Malicious  and  ambitious 
designs,  liberty  and  property,  and  the  rights  of  the  subject,  531.  Together 
with  a  discovery  of  the  several  fallacies  couched  under  those  words,  525,  527, 
529,  532. 

The  necessity  of  reflecting  frequently  upon  the  great  long  rebellion,  533. 

III.  In  private  interests  of  particular  persons,  vol.  iii.  3 ;  such  as  calling, 
1.  Revenge,  a  sense  of  honour,  3 ;  2.  Bodily  abstinence  with  a  demure 
affected  countenance,  piety  and  mortification,  6;  3.  Unalterable  malice,  con- 
stancy, 7;  4.  A  temper  of  mind  resolved  not  to  cringe  and  fawn,  pride,  and 
moronity,  and  ill-nature,  8;  and,  on  the  contrary,  flattery  and  easy  simplicity, 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I. 


XV 


and  good  fellowship,  good-nature,  10;  5.  Pragmatical  meddling  with  other 
men's  matters,  fitness  for  business,  11.  Add  to  these,  the  calling  covetousness, 
good  husbandry,  12,  prodigality,  liberality,  13,  justice,  cruelty,  and  cowardice, 
mercy,  13. 

A  general  survey  and  recollection  of  all  that  has  been  said  on  this  immense 
subject,  13. 

SERMON  XXII. 

prevention  of  sin  an  .invaluable  mercy. 

1  Samuel  xxv.  32,  33. 

And  David  said  to  Abigail,  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  who  sent  thee 
this  day  to  meet  me.  And  blessed  be  thy  advice,  and  blessed  be  thou,  who  hast 
kept  me  this  day  from  coming  to  shed  blood,  and  from  avenging  myself  with  my  own 
hand.    P.  351. 

This  is  David's  retractation  of  his  revenge  resolved  upon  an  insolent  wealthy 
rustic,  who  had  most  unthankfully  rejected  his  request  with  railing  at  his  per- 
son and  messengers,  351.    From  which  we  may, 

I.  Observe  the  greatness  of  sin-preventing  mercy,  352.  Which  appears, 
1.  From  the  deplorable  condition  of  the  sinner,  before  that  mercy  prevents 
him,  352.  2.  From  the  cause  of  that  mercy,  which  is  God's  free  grace,  355. 
3.  From  the  danger  of  sin  unprevented;  which  will  then  be  certainly  com- 
mitted ;  and,  in  such  deliberate  commission,  there  is  a  greater  probability  that 
it  will  not,  than  that  it  will  be  pardoned,  356 ;  because  every  commission 
hardens  the  soul  in  that  sin,  and  disposes  the  soul  to  proceed  further,  and  it 
is  not  in  the  sinner's  power  to  repent,  357.  4.  From  the  advantages  of  the 
prevention  of  sin  above  those  of  the  pardon  of  it,  358 ;  which  are  the  clearness 
of  a  man's  condition,  ib.,  and  the  satisfaction  of  his  mind,  359. 

II.  Make  several  useful  applications,  360.  As,  1.  To  learn  how  vastly 
greater  the  pleasure  is  upon  the  forbearance,  than  in  the  commission  of  sin, 
360.  2.  To  find  out  the  disposition  of  one's  heart  by  this  sure  criterion,  with 
what  ecstasy  he  receives  a  spiritual  blessing,  360.  3.  To  be  content,  and  thank- 
fully to  acquiesce  in  any  condition  and  under  the  severest  passages  of  provi- 
dence, 362 ;  with  relation  to  health,  ib.,.  reputation,  ib.,  and  wealth,  363. 

SERMONS  XXIII.  XXIV. 
an  account  of  the  nature  and  measures  of  conscience. 
1  John  hi.  21. 

Beloved,  if  our  heart  condemn  us  not,  we  have  confidence  towards  God.    P.  365,  383. 

It  is  of  great  moment  and  difficulty  to  be  rationally  satisfied  about  the  estate 
of  one's  soul,  365;  in  which  weighty  concern  we  ought  not  to  rely  upon  such 
uncertain  rules,  ib.,  as  these:  1.  The  general  esteem  of  the  world,  ib.  2.  The 
judgment  of  any  casuist,  366.  3.  The  absolution  of  any  priest,  368.  4.  The 
external  profession  even  of  a  true  religion,  369. 

But  a  man's  own  heart  and  conscience,  above  all  other  things, are  able  to  give 
him  confidence  towards  God,  370.    In  order  to  which  we  must  know, 

I.  How  the  heart  or  conscience  ought  to  be  informed,  371,  viz.  by  right  rea- 
son and  scripture,  372,  and  endeavouring  to  employ  the  utmost  of  our  ability, 
to  get  the  clearest  knowledge  of  our  duty;  and  thus  to  come  to  that  confidence, 
which,  though  it  amounts  not  to  an  infallible  demonstration,  yet  is  a  rational, 
well-grounded  hope,  ib. 

II.  By  what  means  we  may  get  our  hearts  thus  informed,  374,  viz.  1.  By  a 
careful  attention  to  the  dictates  of  reason  and  natural  morality,  ib.  2.  By  a 
tender  regard  to  every  pious  motion  of  God's  Spirit,  375.  3.  By  a  study  of  the 
revealed  word  of  God,  377.  4.  By  keeping  a  frequent  and  impartial  account 
with  our  conscience,  378. 


xvi 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I. 


With  this  caution,  lest  either,  on  the  one  side,  every  doubting'  mar  over- 
throw our  confidence ;  or,  on  the  other,  a  bare  silence  of  conscience  raise  it 
too  much,  380. 

III.  Whence  the  testimony  of  conscience  is  so  authentic,  384,  viz.  I.  Because 
it  is  commissioned  to  this  office  by  God  himself,  ib.i  and  there  is  examined  the 
absurdity  and  impertinence,  386,  the  impudence  and  impiety  of  false  pretences 
of  conscience,  390;  such  particularly  as  those  of  schismatical  dissenters,  389, 
who  oppose  the  solemn  usages  of  our  church  ;  the  necessity  of  which  is  founded 
upon  sound  reason,  ib.  2.  Because  it  is  quick-sighted,  393,  tender  and  sensible, 
394,  exactly  and  severely  impartial,  395. 

IV.  Some  particular  instances,,  wherein  this  confidence  suggested  by  con- 
science exerts  itself,  396,  viz.  I.  In  our  addresses  to  God  by  prayer,  ib. 
2.  At  the  time  of  some  notable  sharp  trial,  397;  as  poverty,  398,  calumny  and 
disgrace,  ib.    3.  Above  all  others,  at  the  time  of  death,  399. 


SERMON  XXV. 

the  doctrine  of  merit  stated. 
Job  xxii.  2. 

Can  a  man  be  profitable  to  God?    P.  404. 

It  is  an  impossible  thing  for  man  to  merit  of  God,  404.    And  although, 

1.  Men  are  naturally  prone  to  persuade  themselves  they  can  merit,  406; 
because, 

1-They  naturally  place  too  high  a  value  upon  themselves  and  perform- 
ances, 406 ; 

2.  They  measure  their  apprehensions  of  God  by  what  they  observe  of 
worldly  princes,  407 ;  yet, 

II.  Such  a  persuasion  is  false  and  absurd,  408,  because  the  conditions  required 
in  merit  are  wanting:  viz. 

1.  That  the  action  be  not  due,  408.  But  man  lies  under  an  indispensable 
obligation  of  duty  to  »God,  by  the  law  of  nature,  as  God's  creature,  409,  and 
servant,  410,  and  by  God's  positive  law,  411. 

2.  That  the  action  may  add  to  the  state  of  the  person  of  whom  it  i3  to  merit, 
411.  But  God  is  a  perfect  being,  wanting  no  supply,  412  ;  and  man  is  an  incon- 
siderable creature,  beholden  for  every  thing  to  every  pan  of  the  creation,  ib. 

3.  That  the  action  and  reward  may  be  of  an  equal  value,  413;  which  cannot 
be  in  the  best  of  our  religious  performances,  414;  notwithstanding  the  popish 
distinction  between  merit  of  condignity  and  congruity,  ib. 

4.  That  the  action  be  done  by  the  man's  sole  power,  without  the  help  of  him 
of  whom  he  is  to  merit,  416.  But  God  worketh  in  us  not  only  to  do,  but  also  to 
will,  ib. 

III.  This  persuasion  hath  been  the  foundation  of  great  corruptions  in  religion, 
417;  viz.,  Pelagianism,  ib.,  and  popery,  419. 

But  though  we  are  not  able  to  merit,  yet, 

IV.  This  ought  not  to  discourage  our  obedience,  419.  Since, 

1.  A  beggar  may  ask  an  alms,  which  he  cannot  claim  as  his  due,  420. 

2.  God's  immutable  veracity  and  promise  will  oblige  him  to  reward  our  sin- 
cere obedience,  420. 

SERMON  XXVI. 
of  the  light  within  us. 
Luke  xi.  35. 

Take  heed  therefore  that  the  light  which  is  in  thee  be  not  darkness.    P.  422. 

The  light  within  us,  or  right  reason,  is  our  conscience,  whose  duties  are  to 
inform  and  to  oblige  ;  which  is  capable  of  being  turned  into  darkness  ;  a  very 


HEADS  OF  SERMON'S  Of  VOL.  I. 


XY11 


considerable  evil,  and  a  great  danger  of  falling  into  it,  422.  The  cause  of  this 
light's  being  darkened  is, 

t  In  general ;  every  thing  which  either  defiles  the  conscience,  426,  or 
weakens  it  by  putting  a  bias  upon  its  judging  faculty,  428. 

EL  In  particular;  every  kind  and  degree  of  sin  considered, 

1.  In  the  act,  428.  And  thus  every  commission  of  any  great  sin  darkens  the 
conscience,  429. 

2.  In  the  habit,  430.  And  thus  the  repeated  practice  of  sin  puts  out  its 
light,  ib. 

3.  In  the  principle,  431.  And  thus  every  vicious  affection  perverts  the 
judging,  and  darkens  the  discerning  power  of  conscience,  431.  Such  as,  1. 
Sensuality,  432 ;  by  the  false  pleasures  of  lust,  433,  of  intemperance,  434. 
2.  Covetousness,  435.  3.  Ambition  or  pride,  436;  and  many  others  besides, 
438. 

Thence  a  man  may  learn  what  he  is  to  avoid,  that  he  may  have  a  clear, 
impartial,  and  right  judging  conscience,  438. 


SERMON  XXVII. 
of  lovixo  ocr  enemies. 
Matthew  v.  44. 

But  I  say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies.    P.  440. 

The  duty  here  enjoined  by  Christ  is  not  opposed  to  the  Mosaic  law,  but 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  scribes  and  pharisees,  440.  For  the  matter  of  all  the 
commandments,  except  the  fourth,  is  of  natural,  moral  right,  ib. ;  and  there  is 
no  addition  of  any  new  precepts,  but  only  of  some  particular  instances  of 
duty,  441 ;  with  an  answer  to  some  objections  concerning  the  commands  of 
loving  God  with  all  our  heart,  442,  and  laying  dojjrn  our  life  for  our  brother, 
443.  Then  it  is  proved,  that  Christ  opposed  not  Moses'  law  as  faulty  or 
imperfect,  but  only  the  comments  of  the  scribes  and  pharisees  upon  or  rather 
against  it,  444.  Among  the  duties  here  enjoined  by  Christ,  is  to  love  our 
enemies.  445  :  by  which, 

E.  Negatively,  445,  is  not  meant 

1.  A  fair  deportment  and  amicable  language,  445. 

2.  Fair  promises,  447. 

3.  A  few  kind  offices,  448.  But, 

II.  Positively,  449,  is  meant, 

1.  A  discharging  the  mind  of  all  the  leaven  of  malice,  449. 

2.  The  doing  ail  real  offices  of  kindness  that  opportunity  shall  lay  in  the 
way,  450. 

3.  The  praying  for  them,  451. 

All  which  are  not  inconsistent  with  a  due  care  of  defending  and  securing 
ourselves  against  them,  452. 

III.  This  love  of  enemies  may  be  enforced  by  many  arguments  drawn 
from 

1.  Their  condition  ;  as  they  are  joined  with  us  in  the  community  of  the 
same  nature,  453  ;  or  (as  it  may  happen)  of  the  same  religion,  ib.,  or  as  they 
may  be  capable,  if  not  of  being  made  friends,  yet  of  being  shamed  and  ren- 
dered inexcusable,  454. 

2.  The  excellency  of  the  duty  itself,  454. 

3.  The  great  example  of  our  Saviour,  455;  and  that  of  a  king,  upon  the 
commemoration  of  whose  nativity  and  return  this  sermon  was  preached. 
456. 

Lastly,  because  this  duty  is  so  difficult,  we  ought  to  beg  God's  assistance 
against  the  opposition  which  flesh  and  blood  will  make  to  it,  456. 


xviii 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I. 


SERMON  XXVIII. 

false  foundations  removed,  and  true  ones  laid 

Matthew  vii.  26,  27. 

And  every  one  that  heareth  these  sayings  of  mine,  and  doeth  them  not,  shall  be 
Ukened  to  a  foolish  man,  which  built  his  house  upon  the  sand:  and  the  rain 
descended,  and  the  floods  came,  and  the  winds  blew,  and  beat  upon  that  house; 
and  it  fell :  and  great  was  the  fall  of  it.    P.  458. 

Our  Saviour  teaches  us  not  to  build  upon  a  deceitful  bottom,  in  the  great 
business  of  our  eternal  happiness,  459 ;  but  only  upon  practice  and  obedience  : 
because, 

I.  That  is  the  best  and  surest  foundation,  459;  being, 

1.  The  only  thing  that  can  mend  our  corrupt  nature,  459. 

2.  The  highest  perfection  of  our  nature,  460. 

3.  The  main  end  of  religion,  460;  as  the  designs  of  it  in  this  world  are  the 
honour  of  God,  461 ;  and  the  advantage  of  society,  ib. 

II.  All  other  foundations  are  false,  462 ;  such  as 

1.  A  naked  unoperative  faith,  462. 

2.  The  goodness  of  the  heart  and  honesty  of  intention,  463. 

3.  Party  and  singularity,  464;  because  the  piety  of  no  party  can  sanctify 
its  proselytes,  465 ;  and  such  an  adhesion  to  a  party  carries  with  it  much  of 
spiritual  pride  in  men,  who  naturally  have  a  desire  of  preeminence,  and  a 
spirit  of  opposition  to  such  as  are  not  of  their  own  way,  ib. 

III.  Such  false  foundations,  upon  trial,  will  be  sure  to  fall,  466 ;  which  is 
shown  from 

1.  The  devil's  force  and  opposition,  466  ;  which  is  sudden  and  unexpected, 
ib. ;  furious  and  impetuous,  467  ;  restless  and  importunate,  ib. 

2.  The  impotence  and  non-resistance  of  the  soul,  468;  which  is  frequently 
unprepared,  weak,  and  inconstant,  468,  469. 

IV.  The  fall  will  be  very  great,  469;  being  scandalous  and  diffusive,  ib. ; 
hardly  and  very  rarely  recoverable,  470. 

Therefore  no  man  must  venture  to  build  his  salvation  upon  false  and  sinking 
grounds,  470 ;  but  only  upon  such  terms  as  God  will  deal  with  him,  viz.,  a 
perfect  obedience,  471. 

SERMON  XXIX. 

a  true  state  and  account  of  the  plea  of  a  tender  conscience. 

1  Corinthians  viit.  12. 

But  when  ye  sin  so  against  the  brethren,  and  wound  their  weak  conscience,  ye  sin 
against  Christ.    P.  473. 

The  apostle  treateth  of  a  weak  conscience  in  new  converts  from  Judaism 
[in  Rom.  xiv.]  and  from  heathenism  [here]  473,  in  these  words;  towards  the 
understanding  of  which  we  must  know, 

L  What  a  weak  conscience  is,  475;  not  that  which  is  improperly  called 
tender,  ib.,  but  the  weakness  here  spoken  of  is  opposed  to  faith,  476 ;  and 
implies, 

1.  The  ignorance  of  some  action's  lawfulness,  476;  not  wilful,  but  such  a 
one  as  is  excusable,  and  the  object  of  pity,  ib.,  arising  from  the  natural  weak- 
ness of  the  understanding,  or  from  the  want  of  opportunity  or  means  of 
knowledge,  477. 

2.  The  suspicion  of  some  action's  unlawfulness,  478. 

3.  A  religious  abstinence  from  the  use  of  that  thing,  of  the  unlawfulness 
whereof  it  is  ignorant  or  suspicious,  478. 

II.  How  such  a  weak  conscience  is  wounded,  479  ;  viz. 
1.  By  being  grieved  and  robbed  of  its  peace,  479. 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I.  xix 

2.  By  being  emboldened  to  act  against  its  present  persuasion,  479 ;  either 
through  example,  ib.,  or  through  a  command,-  with  the  conjunction  of  some 
reward  or  penalty,  4S0,  descending  from  a  private  or  a  public  person,  ib. 

III.  We  may  thence  infer  : 

1.  That  none  having  been  brought  up  and  long  continued  in  the  communion 
of  a  true  church,  having  withal  the  use  of  his  reason,  can  justly  plead  weakness 
of  conscience,  481. 

2.  That  such  a  weakness  can  upon  no  sufficient  ground  be  continued  in,  483. 

3.  That  the  plea  of  it  ought  not  to  be  admitted  in  prejudice  of  the  laws, 
which  are  framed  for  the  good  not  of  any  particular  persons,  but  of  the  com- 
munity, 484.  For  the  ill-consequences  would  be,  that  there  could  be  no  limits 
assigned  to  this  plea,  485,  nor  any  evidence  of  its  sincerity,  ib.,  and  this  would 
absolutely  bind  the  magistrate's  hands,  486. 

Besides,  such  pleas  are  usually  accompanied  with  partiality,  487,  and  hypo- 
crisy, such  as  those  of  the  dissenters,  ib.,  which  upon  the  foregoing  reasons 
ought  not  to  be  allowed,  488. 

SERMON  XXX. 

christianity  mysterious,  and  the  wisdom  of  god  in  making  it  so. 

1  Corinthians  ii.  7. 

But  we  speak  the  icisdom  of  God  in  a  mystery.    P.  489. 

The  apostle's  design  here  is  to  set  forth  the  transcendent  worth  of  the  gospel 
by  two  qualifications  eminently  belonging  to  it,  489,  viz. 

I.  That  is  the  wisdom  of  God,  489 ;  a  wisdom  respecting  speculation,  and 
here  principally  relating  to  practice,  ib. ;  a  wisdom  as  irresistibly  powerful,  as 
it  is  infallible,  490. 

II.  That  this  wisdom  is  in  a  mystery,  490. 

1.  In  the  nature  of  the  things  treated  of  in  the  Christian  religion,  491  ;  which 
are  of  difficult  apprehension  for  their  greatness,  ib.,  spirituality,  492 ;  strange- 
ness, 493 ;  as  may  be  exemplified  in  two  principal  articles  of  it,  regeneration, 
494,  and  the  resurrection,  ib. 

2.  In  the  ends  of  it,  495;  it  is  as  much  the  design  of  religion  to  oblige  men 
to  believe  the  credenda  as  to  practise  the  agenda;  and  there  is  as  clear  a  reason 
for  the  belief  of  the  one,  as  for  the  practice  of  the  other,  ib.  But  their  mysteri- 
ousness,  1.  Makes  a  greater  impression  of  awe,  496;  2.  Humbles  the  pride  of 
men's  reason,  498  ;  3.  Engages  us  in  a  more  diligent  search,  499  ;  4.  Will,  when 
fully  revealed,  make  part  of  our  happiness  hereafter,  501. 

Thence  we  may  learn  in  such  important  points  of  religion, 

1.  To  submit  to  the  judgment  of  the  whole  church  in  general,  and  of  our 
spiritual  guides  in  particular,  502. 

2.  Not  to  conclude  every  thing  impossible,  which  to  our  reason  is  unintel- 
ligible, 504. 

3.  Nor  by  a  vain  presumption  to  pretend  to  clear  up  all  mysteries  in 
religion,  504. 

SERMON  XXXI. 
the  lineal  descent  of  jesus  of  nazareth. 
Rev.  xxii.  16. 

I  am  the  root  and  the  offspring  of  David,  and  the  bright  and  morning  star.    P.  507. 

In  this  book  of  mysteries  nothing  is  more  mysterious  than  what  is  contained 
in  these  words,  the  union  of  the  divinity  and  humanity  in  our  Saviour's  person, 
507.    He  is, 

L  In  his  divinity,  the  root  of  David;  having  a  being  before  him,  5G8;  a  being 
which  had  no  beginning,  equal  to  his  Father:  though  his  divinity  is  denied  by 
the  Arians ;  and  his  pre-existence  to  his  humanity  by  the  Socinians,  508. 


XX 


HEADS  OF  SERMONS  IN  VOL.  I. 


II.  In  his  humanity,  the  offspring  of  David.  511;  being,  in  St.  Matthew's 
genealogy,  naturally  the  son  of  David ;  and,  in  that  of  St.  Luke,  legally  the 
king  of  the  Jews,  513. 

III.  The  bright  and  morning  star,  517,  with  relation, 

1.  To  the  nature  of  its  substance :  he  was  pure,  without  the  least  imperfec- 
tion, 517; 

2.  To  the  manner  of  its  appearance :  he  appeared  small  in  his  humanity, 
though  he  was  the  great  almighty  God,  518; 

3.  To  the  quality  of  its  operation,  519;  open  and  visible  by  his  light,  chasing 
away  the  heathenish  false  worship,  the  imperfect  one  of  the  Jews,  and  all  pre- 
tended Messiahs,  519,  520;  secret  and  invisible  by  his  influence,  illuminating 
our  judgment,  bending  our  will,  and  at  last  changing  the  whole  man,  521. 


SERMON  XXXII. 

jesus  of  nazareth  proved  the  true  and  only  messiah. 
John  i.  11. 

He  came  to  his  own,  and  his  own  received  him  not.    P.  523. 

No  scripture  has  so  directly  and  immoveably  stood  in  the  way  of  the  several 
opposers  of  the  divinity  of  our  Saviour,  as  this  chapter,  523,  whereof  this  text 
is  a  part :  in  which  we  have, 

I.  Christ's  coming  into  the  world,  524 ;  who, 

1.  Was  the  second  person  in  the  glorious  Trinity,  the  ever  blessed  and 
eternal  Son  of  God,  524. 

2.  Came  from  the  bosom  of  his  Father,  and  the  incomprehensible  glories  of 
the  Godhead,  527. 

3.  Came  to  the  Jews,  who  were  his  own  by  right  of  consanguinity,  528. 

4.  When  they  were  in  their  lowest  estate,  529  ;  national,  ib.,  and  ecclesiastical, 
530.  In  which  we  may  consider  the  invincible  strength  and  the  immoveable 
veracity  of  God's  promise,  ib. 

II.  Christ  rejected  by  his  own,  531.    For  the  Jews, 

1.  Exceptions  were,  1.  That  he  came  not  as  a  temporal  prince,  532.  2.  That 
he  set  himself  against  Moses'  law,  ib. 

2.  The  unreasonableness  of  which  exceptions  appears  from  this:  1.  That  the 
Messiah's  blessings  were  not  to  be  temporal,  533 ;  and  he  himself,  according  to 
all  the  prophecies  of  scripture,  was  to  be  of  a  low,  despised  estate,  534.  2.  That 
Christ  came  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil  and  abrogate  Moses'  law,  535. 

3.  The  Jews  had  great  reasons  to  induce  them  to  receive  him.  For,  1.  All 
the  marks  of  the  Messiah  did  most  eminently  appear  in  him,  536.  2.  His  whole 
behaviour  among  them  was  a  continued  act  of  mercy  and  charity,  537. 

Lastly,  the  Jews  are  not  the  only  persons  concerned  in  this  guilt,  but  also  all 
vicious  Christians,  539. 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY, 


TO 

A  SERMON  PREACHED  BEFORE  THE  COURT,  AT  CHRIST  CHURCH  CHAPEL, 

OXFORD. 


TO  THE  RIGHT  HONOURABLE 

EDWARD,  EARL  OF  CLARENDON, 

LORD  HIGH-CHAXCELLOR  OF  ENGLAND,  AND  CHANCELLOR  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  OXON,  AND  ONE  OF  HIS  MAJESTY'S  MOST  HONOURABLE  PRIVY-COUNCIL. 

My  Lord. 

Though  to  prefix  so  great  a  name  to  so  mean  a  piece,  seems 
like  enlarging  the  entrance  of  a  house  that  affords  no  reception ;  yet 
since  there  is  nothing  can  warrant  the  publication  of  it,  but  what  can 
also  command  it,  the  work  must  think  of  no  other  patronage  than  the 
same  that  adorns  and  protects  its  author.  Some  indeed  vouch  great 
names,  because  they  think  they  deserve  ;  but  I,  because  I  need  such : 
and  had  I  not  more  occasion  than  many  others  to  see  and  converse 
with  your  Lordship's  candour  and  proneness  to  pardon,  there  is  none 
had  greater  cause  to  dread  your  judgment ;  and  thereby,  in  some 
part,  I  venture  to  commend  my  own.  For  all  know,  who  know  your 
Lordship,  that  in  a  nobler  respect  than  either  that  of  government  or 
patronage,  you  represent  and  head  the  best  of  universities,  and  have 
travelled  over  too  many  nations  and  authors  to  encourage  any  one  that 
understands  himself,  to  appear  an  author  in  your  hands,  who  seldom 
read  any  books  to  inform  yourself,  but  only  to  countenance  and  credit 
Vol.  I.— 1  A  1 


2 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY. 


them.  But,  my  Lord,  what  is  here  published  pretends  no  instruction, 
but  only  homage  :  while  it  teaches  many  of  the  world,  it  only  de- 
scribes your  Lordship,  who  have  made  the  ways  of  labour  and  virtue, 
of  doing-,  and  doing  good,  your  business  and  your  recreation,  your 
meat  and  your  drink,  and  I  may  add  also,  your  sleep.  My  Lord, 
the  subject  here  treated  of  is  of  that  nature  that  it  would  seem  but  a 
chimera,  and  a  bold  paradox,  did  it  not  in  the  very  front  carry  an 
instance  to  exemplify  it,  and  so  by  the  dedication  convince  the  world, 
that  the  discourse  itself  was  not  impracticable.  For  such  ever  was, 
and  is,  and  will  be  the  temper  of  the  generality  of  mankind,  that, 
while  I  send  men  for  pleasure  to  religion,  I  cannot  but  expect,  that 
they  will  look  upon  me  as  only  having  a  mind  to  be  pleasant  with 
them  myself;  nor  are  men  to  be  worded  into  new  tempers  or  consti- 
tutions :  and  he  that  thinks  that  any  one  can  persuade,  but  he  that 
made  the  world,  will  find  that  he  does  not  well  understand  it. 

My  Lord,  I  have  obeyed  your  command,  for  such  must  I  account 
your  desire  ;  and  thereby  design,  not  so  much  the  publication  of  my 
sermon  as  of  my  obedience :  for,  next  to  the  supreme  pleasure  de- 
scribed in  the  ensuing  discourse,  I  enjoy  none  greater,  than  in  having 
any  opportunity  to  declare  myself, 

Your  Lordship's  very  humble  Servant, 

and  obliged  Chaplain, 

Robert  South. 


SERMONS 


SERMON  I. 

THE  WAYS  OF  WISDOM  ARE  WAYS  OF  PLEASANTNESS. 
[Preached  before  the  Court  at  Christ  Church  Chapel.] 

Prov.  m.  17. 

Her  ways  are  ways  of  pleasantness. 

The  text,  relating  to  something  going  before,  must  carry  our 
eye  back  to  the  thirteenth  verse,  where  we  shall  find,  that  the 
thing,  of  which  these  words  are  affirmed,  is  Wisdom :  a  name 
by  which  the  Spirit  of  God  was  here  pleased  to  express  to  us  re- 
ligion, and  thereby  to  tell  the  world,  what  before  it  was  not 
aware  of,  and  perhaps  will  not  yet  believe,  that  those  two  great 
things  that  so  engross  the  desires  and  designs  of  both  the  nobler 
and  ignobler  sort  of  mankind,  are  to  be  found  in  religion,  namely, 
wisdom  and  pleasure ;  and  that  the  former  is  the  direct  way  to 
the  latter,  as  religion  is  to  both. 

That  pleasure  is  man's  chiefest  good  (because  indeed  it  is  the 
perception  of  good  that  is  properly  pleasure),  is  an  assertion  most 
certainly  true,  though,  under  the  common  acceptance  of  it,  not 
only  false,  but  odious :  for,  according  to  this,  pleasure  and  sen- 
suality pass  for  terms  equivalent ;  and,  therefore,  he  that  takes 
it  in  this  sense  alters  the  subject  of  the  discourse.  Sensuality 
is  indeed  a  part,  or  rather  one  kind,  of  pleasure,  such  a  one  as  it 
is  :  for  pleasure,  in  general,  is  the  consequent  apprehension  of  a 
suitable  object,  suitably  applied  to  a  rightly-disposed  faculty ; 
and  so  must  be  conversant  both  about  the  faculties  of  the  body 
and  of  the  soul  respectively ;  as  being  the  result  of  the  fruitions 
belonging  to  both. 

Now  amongst  those  many  arguments  used  to  press  upon  men 
the  exercise  of  religion,  I  know  none  that  are  like  to  be  so  suc- 
cessful, as  those  that  answer  and  remove  'the  prejudices  that 
generally  possess  and  bar  up  the  hearts  of  men  against  it : 
amongst  which,  there  is  none  so  prevalent  in  truth,  though  so 


4 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  I. 


little  owned  in  pretence,  as  that  it  is  an  enemy  to  man's  pleasures, 
that  it  bereaves  them  of  all  the  sweets  of  converse,  dooms  them 
to  an  absurd  and  perpetual  melancholy,  designing  to  make  the 
world  nothing  else  but  a  great  monastery.  With  which  notion 
of  religion,  nature  and  reason  seem  to  have  great  cause  to  be 
dissatisfied.  For,  since  God  never  created  any  faculty,  either  in 
soul  or  body,  but  withal  prepared  for  it  a  suitable  object,  and 
that  in  order  to  its  gratification ;  can  we  think  that  religion  was 
designed  only  for  a  contradiction  to  nature  ?  And,  with  the 
greatest  and  most  irrational  tyranny  in  the  world,  to  tantalize 
and  tie  men  up  from  enjoyment,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  opportu- 
nities of  enjoyment?  To  place  men  with  the  furious  affections 
of  hunger  and  thirst  in  the  very  bosom  of  plenty  ;  and  then  to 
tell  them,  that  the  envy  of  Providence  has  sealed  up  every  thing 
that  is  suitable  under  the  character  of  unlawful  ?  For  certainly, 
first  to  frame  appetites  fit  to  receive  pleasure,  and  then  to  inter- 
dict them  with  a  "  touch  not,  taste  not,"  can  be  nothing  else, 
than  only  to  give  them  occasion  to  devour  and  prey  upon  them- 
selves ;  and  so  to  keep  men  under  the  perpetual  torment  of  an 
unsatisfied  desire  :  a  thing  hugely  contrary  to  the  natural  felicity 
of  the  creature,  and  consequently  to  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of 
the  great  Creator. 

He  therefore  that  would  persuade  men  to  religion,  both  with 
art  and  efficacy,  must  found  the  persuasion  of  it  upon  this,  that 
it  interferes  not  with  any  rational  pleasure,  that  it  bids  nobody 
quit  the  enjoyment  of  any  one  thing  that  his  reason  can  prove 
to  him  ought  to  be  enjoyed.  It  is  confessed,  when  through  the 
cross  circumstances  of  a  man's  temper  or  condition,  the  enjoy- 
ment of  a  pleasure  would  certainly  expose  him  to  a  greater  in- 
convenience, then  religion  bids  him  quit  it ;  that  is,  it  bids  him 
prefer  the  endurance  of  a  lesser  evil  before  a  greater,  and  nature 
itself  does  no  less.  Religion  therefore  intrenches  upon  none  of 
our  privileges,  invades  none  of  our  pleasures  ;  it  may  indeed 
sometimes  command  us  to  change,  but  never  totally  to  abjure 
them. 

But  it  is  easily  foreseen,  that  this  discourse  will  in  the  very 
beginning  of  it  be  encountered  by  an  argument  from  experience, 
and  therefore  not  more  obvious  than  strong ;  namely,  that  it 
cannot  but  be  the  greatest  trouble  in  the  world  for  a  man  thus, 
as  it  were,  even  to  shake  off  himself,  and  to  defy  his  nature,  by 
a  perpetual  thwarting  of  his  innate  appetites  and  desires ;  which 
yet  is  absolutely  necessary  to  a  severe  and  impartial  prosecution 
of  a  course  of  piety :  nay,  and  we  have  this  asserted  also,  by 
the  verdict  of  Christ  himself,  who  still  makes  the  disciplines  of 
self-denial  and  the  cross,  those  terrible  blows  to  flesh  and  blood, 
the  indispensable  requisites  to  the  being  of  his  disciples.  All 
v  hich  being  so,  would  not  he  that  should  be  so  hardy  as  to  attempt 
to  persuade  men  to  piety  from  the  pleasures  of  it,  be  liable  to  that 


PLEASANTNESS  OF  WISDOM'S  WAYS. 


5 


invective  taunt  from  all  mankind,  that  the  Israelites  gave  to 
Moses  :  "  Wilt  thou  put  out  the  eyes  of  this  people  ?"  Wilt  thou 
persuade  us  out  of  our  first  notions  ?  Wilt  thou  demonstrate, 
that  there  is  any  delight  in  a  cross,  any  comfort  in  violent 
abridgments,  and,  which  is  the  greatest  paradox  of  all,  that  the 
highest  pleasure  is  to  abstain  from  it  ? 

For  answer  to  which,  it  must  be  confessed,  that  all  arguments 
whatsoever  against  experience  are  fallacious ;  and  therefore,  in 
order  to  the  clearing  of  the  assertion  laid  down,  I  shall  premise 
these  two  considerations  : 

1.  That  pleasure  is,  in  the  nature  of  it,  a  relative  thing,  and 
so  imports  a  peculiar  relation  and  correspondence  to  the  state  and 
condition  of  the  person  to  whom  it  is  a  pleasure.  For  as  those 
who  discourse  of  atoms  affirm  that  there  are  atoms  of  all  forms, 
some  round,  some  triangular,  some  square,  and  the  like  ;  all 
which  are  continually  in  motion,  and  never  settle  till  they  fall 
into  a  fit  circumscription  or  place  of  the  same  figure  :  so  there 
are  the  like  great  diversities  of  minds  and  objects.  Whence  it  is, 
that  this  object,  striking  upon  a  mind  thus  or  thus  disposed,  flies 
off  and  rebounds  without  making  any  impression  ;  but  the  same 
luckily  happening  upon  another  of  a  disposition,  as  it  were, 
framed  for  it,  is  presently  caught  at,  and  greedily  clasped  into 
the  nearest  unions  and  embraces. 

2.  The  other  thing  to  be  considered,  is  this  :  that  the  estate  of 
all  men  by  nature  is  more  or  less  different  from  that  estate,  into 
which  the  same  persons  do,  or  may  pass,  by  the  exercise  of  that 
which  the  philosophers  called  virtue,  and  into  which  men  are 
much  more  effectually  and  sublimely  translated  by  that  which 
we  call  grace ;  that  is,  by  the  supernatural  over-powering  operation 
of  God's  Spirit.  The  difference  of  which  two  estates  consists 
in  this :  that  in  the  former  the  sensitive  appetites  rule  and 
domineer ;  in  the  latter  the  supreme  faculty  of  the  soul,  called 
reason,  sways  the  sceptre,  and  acts  the  whole  man  above  the 
irregular  demands  of  appetite  and  affection. 

That  the  distinction  between  these  two  is  not  a  mere  figment, 
framed  only  to  serve  an  hypothesis  in  divinity ;  and  that  there  is 
no  man  but  is  really  under  one,  before  he  is  under  the  other,  I 
shall  prove,  by  showing  a  reason  why  it  is  so,  or  rather  indeed 
why  it  cannot  but  be  so.  And  it  is  this :  because  every  man,  in 
the  beginning  of  his  life,  for  several  years  is  capable  only. of 
exercising  his  sensitive  faculties  and  desires,  the  use  of  reason 
not  showing  itself  till  about  the  seventh  year  of  his  age  ;  and 
then  at  length  but,  as  it  were,  dawning  in  very  imperfect  essays 
and  discoveries.  Now  it  being  most  undeniably  evident,  that 
every  faculty  and  power  grows  stronger  and  stronger  by  exercise  ; 
is  it  any  wonder  at  all,  when  a  man,  for  the  space  of  his  first  six 
years,  and  those  the  years  of  ductility  and  impression,  has  been 
wholly  ruled  by  the  propensions  of  sense,  at  that  age  very  eager 

a2 


6  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  I. 

and  impetuous ;  that  then,  after  all,  his  reason  beginning  to 
exert  and  put  forth  itself,  finds  the  man  prepossessed,  and  under 
another  power  ?  So  that  it  has  much  ado,  by  many  little  steps  and 
gradual  conquests,  to  recover  its  prerogative  from  the  usurpations 
of  appetite,  and  so  to  subject  the  whole  man  to  its  dictates  ;  the 
difficulty  of  which  is  not  conquered  by  some  men  all  their  days. 
And  this  is  one  true  ground  of  the  difference  between  a  state 
of  nature  and  a  state  of  grace,  which  some  are  pleased  to 
scoff  at  in  divinity,  who  think  that  they  confute  all  that  they 
laugh  at,  not  knowing  that  it  may  be  solidly  evinced  by  mere 
reason  and  philosophy. 

These  two  considerations  being  premised,  namely,  that  pleasure 
implies  a  proportion  and  agreement  to  the  respective  states  and 
conditions  of  men ;  and  that  the  estate  of  men  by  nature  is 
vastly  different  from  the  estate  into  which  grace  or  virtue 
transplants  them ;  all  that  objection  levelled  against  the  foregoing 
assertion  is  very  easily  resolvable. 

For  there  is  no  doubt,  but  a  man,  while  he  resigns  himself  up 
to  the  brutish  guidance  of  sense  and  appetite,  has  no  relish  at  all 
for  the  spiritual,  refined  delights  of  a  soul  clarified  by  grace  and 
virtue.  The  pleasures  of  an  angel  can  never  be  the  pleasures  of 
a  hog.  But  this  is  the  thing  that  we  contend  for ;  that  a  man, 
having  once  advanced  himself  to  a  state  of  superiority  over  the 
control  of  his  inferior  appetites,  finds  an  infinitely  more  solid 
and  sublime  pleasure  in  the  delights  proper  to  his  reason,  than 
the  same  person  had  ever  conveyed  to  him  by  the  bare  ministry 
of  his  senses.  His  taste  is  absolutely  changed,  and  therefore  that 
which  pleased  him  formerly,  becomes  flat  and  insipid  to  his 
appetite,  now  grown  more  masculine  and  severe.  For,  as  age 
and  maturity  passes  a  real  and  marvellous  change  upon  the  diet 
and  recreations  of  the  same  person ;  so  that  no  man  at  the  years 
and  vigour  of  thirty,  is  either  fond  of  sugar-plums  or  rattles  :  in 
like  manner,  when  reason,  by  the  assistance  of  grace,  has  prevailed 
over,  and  out-grown  the  encroachments  of  sense,  the  delights  of 
sensuality  are  to  such  a  one  but  as  a  hobby-horse  would  be  to 
a  counsellor  of  state  ;  or  as  tasteless  as  a  bundle  of  hay  to  a 
hungry  lion.  Every  alteration  of  a  man's  condition  infallibly  infers 
an  alteration  of  his  pleasures. 

The  Athenians  laughed  the  physiognomist  to  scorn,  who, 
pretending  to  read  men's  minds  in  their  foreheads,  described 
Socrates  for  a  crabbed,  lustful,  proud,  ill-natured  person  ;  they 
knowing  how  directly  contrary  he  was  to  that  dirty  character. 
But  Socrates  bade  them  forbear  laughing  at  the  man,  for  that  he 
had  given  them  a  most  exact  account  of  his  nature ;  but  what 
they  saw  in  him  so  contrary  at  the  present,  was  from  the  conquest 
that  he  had  got  over  his  natural  disposition  by  philosophy.. 
And  now  let  any  one  consider,  whether  that  anger,  that  revenge, 
that  wantonness  and  ambition,  that  were  the  proper  pleasures  of 


PLEASANTNESS  OF  WISDOM'S  WAYS. 


7 


Socrates,  under  his  natural  temper  of  crabbed,  lustful,  and  proud, 
could  have  at  all  affected  or  enamoured  the  mind  of  the  same 
Socrates,  made  gentle,  chaste,  and  humble  by  philosophy. 

Aristotle  says,  that  were  it  possible  to  put  a  young  man's  eye 
into  an  old  man's  head,  he  would  see  as  plainly  and  clearly  as  the 
other ;  so,  could  we  infuse  the  inclinations  and  principles  of  a  vir- 
tuous person  into  him  that  prosecutes  his  debauches  with  the 
greatest  keenness  of  desire,  and  sense  of  delight,  he  would  loathe 
and  reject  them  as  heartily,  as  he  now  pursues  them.  Diogenes, 
being  asked  at  a  feast,  why  he  did  not  continue  eating  as  the  rest 
did,  answered  him  that  asked  him  with  another  question,  Pray,  why 
do  you  eat  ?  Why,  says  he,  for  my  pleasure ;  why,  so,  says  Dio- 
genes, do  I  abstain  for  my  pleasure.  And  therefore  the  vain,  the 
vicious,  and  luxurious  person  argues  at  a  high  rate  of  inconsequence, 
when  he  makes  his  particular  desires  the  general  measure  of  other 
men's  delights.  But  the  case  is  so  plain,  that  I  shall  not  upbraid 
any  man's  understanding,  by  endeavouring  to  give  it  any  farther 
illustration. 

But  still,  after  all,  I  must  not  deny  that  the  change  and  passage 
from  a  state  of  nature,  to  a  state  of  virtue,  is  laborious,  and, 
consequently,  irksome  and  unpleasant:  and  to  this  it  is,  that  all 
the  forementioned  expressions  of  our  Saviour  do  allude.  But 
surely  the  baseness  of  one  condition,  and  the  generous  excellency  of 
the  other,  is  a  sufficient  argument  to  induce  any  one  to  a  change. 
For  as  no  man  would  think  it  a  desirable  thing,  to  preserve 
the  itch  upon  himself,  only  for  the  pleasure  of  scratching  that 
attends  that  loathsome  distemper:  so  neither  can  any  man,  that 
would  be  faithful  to  his  reason,  yield  his  ear  to  be  bored  through 
by  his  domineering  appetites,  and  so  choose  to  serve  them  for 
ever,  only  for  those  poor,  thin  gratifications  of  sensuality  that 
they  are  able  to  reward  him  with.  The  ascent  up  the  hill  is  hard 
and  tedious,  but  the  serenity  and  fair  prospect  at  the  top  is  suf- 
ficient to  incite  the  labour  of  undertaking  it,  and  to  reward  it,  being 
undertook.  But  the  difference  of  these  two  conditions  of  men,  as 
the  foundation  of  their  different  pleasures,  being  thus  made  out,  to 
press  men  with  arguments  to  pass  from  one  to  another,  is  not  directly 
in  the  way  or  design  of  this  discourse. 

Yet,  before  I  come  to  declare  positively  the  pleasures  that  are 
to  be  found  in  the  ways  of  religion,  one  of  the  grand  duties  of 
which  is  stated  upon  repentance;  a  thing  expressed  to  us  by  the 
grim  names  of  mortification,  crucifixion,  and  the  like ;  and  that  I 
may  not  proceed  only  upon  absolute  negations,  without  some 
concessions,  we  will  see,  whether  this  so  harsh,  dismal,  and 
affrighting  duty  of  repentance  is  so  entirely  gall,  as  to  admit  of  no 
mixture,  no  allay  of  sweetness,  to  reconcile  it  to  the  apprehensions 
of  reason  and  nature. 

Now  repentance  consists  properly  of  two  things: — 1.  Sorrow  for 
sin.    2.  Change  of  life. 


8  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  I. 

A  word  briefly  of  them  both. 

1.  And  first  of  sorrow  for  sin:  usually,  the  sting  of  sorrow  is 
this,  that  it  neither  removes  nor  alters  the  thing  we  sorrow  for; 
and  so  is  but  a  kind  of  reproach  to  our  reason,  wdiich  will  be 
sure  to  accost  us  with  this  dilemma.  Either  the  thing  we  sorrow 
for,  is  to  be  remedied,  or  it  is  not:  if  it  is,  why  then  do  we 
spend  the  time  in  mourning,  which  should  be  spent  in  an  active 
applying  of  remedies?  But  if  it  is  not;  then  is  our  sorrow  vain 
and  superfluous,  as  tending  to  no  real  effect.  For  no  man  can 
weep  his  father  or  his  friend  out  of  the  grave,  or  mourn  himself 
out  of  a  bankrupt  condition.  But  this  spiritual  sorrow  is  effec- 
tual to  one  of  the  greatest  and  highest  purposes  that  mankind 
can  be  concerned  in.  It  is  a  means  to  avert  an  impendent 
wrath,  to  disarm  an  offended  Omnipotence;  and  even  to  fetch  a 
soul  out  of  the  very  jaws  of  hell.  So  that  the  end  and  conse- 
quence of  this  sorrow  sweetens  the  sorrow  itself;  and,  as  Solomon 
says,  "  In  the  midst  of  laughter,  the  heart  is  sorrowful ;"  so,  in 
the  midst  of  sorrow  here,  the  heart  may  rejoice :  for  while  it 
mourns,  it  reads,  that  "  those  that  mourn  shall  be  comforted 
and  so  while  the  penitent  weeps  with  one  eye,  he  views  his 
deliverance  with  the  other.  But  then  for  the  external  expres- 
sions, and  vent  of  sorrow;  we  know  that  there  is  a  certain 
pleasure  in  weeping ;  it  is  the  discharge  of  a  big  and  a  swelling 
grief;  of  a  full  and  a  strangling  discontent;  and  therefore,  he 
that  never  had  such  a  burden  upon  his  heart,  as  to  give  him 
opportunity  thus  to  ease  it,  has  one  pleasure  in  this  world  yet  to 
come. 

2.  As  for  the  other  part  of  repentance,  which  is  change  of  life, 
this  indeed  may  be  troublesome  in  the  entrance ;  yet  it  is  but  the 
first  bold  onset,  the  first  resolute  violence  and  invasion  upon  a 
vicious  habit,  that  is  so  sharp  and  afflicting.  Every  impression 
of  the  lancet  cuts,  but  it  is  the  first  only  that  smarts.  Besides, 
it  is  an  argument  hugely  unreasonable,  to  plead  the  pain  of 
passing  from  a  vicious  estate,  unless  it  was  proved,  that  there 
was  none  in  the  continuance  under  it ;  but  surely,  when  wTe  read 
of  the  service,  the  bondage,  and  the  captivity  of  sinners,  we  are 
not  entertained  only  with  the  air  of  words  and  metaphors ;  and 
instead  of  truth,  put  off  with  similitudes.  Let  him  that  says  it 
is  a  trouble  to  refrain  from  a  debauch,  convince  us,  that  it  is  not 
a  greater  to  undergo  one ;  and  that  the  confessor  did  not  impose 
a  shrewd  penance  upon  the  drunken  man,  by  bidding  him  go  and 
be  drunk  again ;  and  that  lisping,  raging,  redness  of  eyes,  and 
what  is  not  fit  to  be  named  in  such  an  audience,  is  not  more 
toilsome,  than  to  be  clean,  and  quiet,  and  discreet,  and  respected 
for  being  so.  All  the  trouble  that  is  in  it,  is  the  trouble  of  being 
sound,  being  cured,,  and  being  recovered.  But  if  there  be  great 
arguments  for  health,  then  certainly  there  are  the  same  for  the 
obtaining  of  it ;  and  so,  keeping  a  due  proportion  between  spirituals 


PLEASANTNESS  OF  WISDOM'S  WAYS. 


9 


and  temporals,  we  neither  have  nor  pretend  to  greater  arguments  for 
repentance. 

Having  thus  now  cleared  off  all  that  by  way  of  objection  can 
lie  against  the  truth  asserted,  by  showing  the  proper  qualification 
of  the  subject,  to  whom  only  the  "  ways  of  wisdom"  can  be 
"  ways  of  pleasantness  ;"  for  the  further  prosecution  of  the  matter  in 
hand,  I  shall  show  what  are  those  properties  that  so  peculiarly  set 
off  and  enhance  the  excellency  of  this  pleasure. 

I.  The  first  is,  that  it  is  the  proper  pleasure  of  that  part  of 
man,  which  is  the  largest  and  most  comprehensive  of  pleasure, 
and  that  is  his  mind:  a  substance  of  a  boundless  comprehension. 
The  mind  of  man  is  an  image,  not  only  of  God's  spirituality,  but 
of  his  infinity.  It  is  not  like  any  of  the  senses,  limited  to  this 
or  that  kind  of  object ;  as  the  sight  intermeddles  not  with  that 
which  affects  the  smell ;  but,  with  a  universal  superintendence, 
it  arbitrates  upon  and  takes  them  all  in.  It  is,  as  I  may  so  say, 
an  ocean,  into  which  all  the  little  rivulets  of  sensation,  both  external 
and  internal,  discharge  themselves.  It  is  framed  by  God  to  receive 
all,  and  more  than  nature  can  afford  it ;  and  so  to  be  its  own  motive 
to  seek  for  something  above  nature.  ■  Now  this  is  that  part  of  man, 
to  which  the  pleasures  of  religion  properly  belong;  and  that  in  a 
double  respect : 

1.  In  reference  to  speculation,  as  it  sustains  the  name  of  under- 
standing. 2.  In  reference  to  practice,  as  it  sustains  the  name  of 
*  conscience. 

1.  And  first  for  speculation:  the  pleasures  of  which  have  been 
sometimes  so  great,  so  intense,  so  engrossing  of  all  the  powers  of 
the  soul,  that  there  has  been  no  room  left  for  any  other  pleasure. 
It  has  so  called  together  all  the  spirits  to  that  one  work,  that  there 
has  been  no  supply  to  carry  on  the  inferior  operations  of  nature. 
Contemplation  feels  no  hunger,  nor  is  sensible  of  any  thirst,  but  of 
that  after  knowledge.  How  frequent  and  exalted  a  pleasure  did 
David  find  from  his  meditation  in  the  divine  law!  "All  the  day 
long"  it  was  the  theme  of  his  thoughts.  The  affairs  of  state, 
the  government  of  his  kingdom,  might  indeed  employ,  but  it  was 
this  only  that  refreshed  his  mind. 

How  short  of  this  are  the  delights  of  the  epicure !  How  vastly 
disproportionate  are  the  pleasures  of  the  eating,  and  of  the  thinking 
man !  Indeed  as  different  as  the  silence  of  an  Archimedes  in  the 
study  of  a  problem,  and  the  stillness  of  a  sow  at  her  wash.  Nothing 
is  comparable  to  the  pleasure  of  an  active  and  a  prevailing  thought : 
a  thought  prevailing  over  the  difficulty  and  obscurity  of  the  object, 
and  refreshing  the  soul  with  new  discoveries  and  images  of  things ; 
and  thereby  extending  the  bounds  of  apprehension,  and,  as  it  were, 
enlarging  the  territories  of  reason. 

Now  this  pleasure  of  the  speculation  of  divine  things  is  advanced 
upon  a  double  account. 

Vol.  I. — 2 


10 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  I. 


(1.)  The  greatness. 

(2.)  The  newness  of  the  object. 

(1.)  And  first  for  the  greatness  of  it.  It  is  no  less  than  the 
great  God  himself,  and  that  both  in  his  nature  and  his  works. 
For  the  eye  of  reason,  like  that  of  the  eagle,  directs  itself  chiefly 
to  the  sun,  to  a  glory  that  neither  admits  of  a  superior,  nor  an 
equal.  Religion  carries  the  soul  to  the  study  of  every  divine 
attribute. 

It  possesses  it  with  the  amazing  thoughts  of  omnipotence ;  of  a 
power  able  to  fetch  up  such  a  glorious  fabric,  as  this  of  the  world, 
out  of  the  abyss  of  vanity  and  nothing,  and  able  to  throw  it  back 
into  the  same  original  nothing  again.  It  drowns  us  in  the  specu- 
lation of  the  divine  omniscience ;  that  can  maintain  a  steady 
infallible  comprehension  of  all  events  in  themselves  contingent 
and  accidental ;  and  certainly  know  that,  which  does  not  certainly 
exist.  It  confounds  the  greatest  subtilties  of  speculation,  with 
the  riddles  of  God's  omnipresence ;  that  can  spread  a  single  indi- 
vidual substance  through  all  spaces ;  and  yet  without  any  com- 
mensuration  of  parts  to  any,  or  circumscription  within  any,  though 
totally  in  every  one.  And  then  for  his  eternity;  which  non- 
plusses  the  strongest  and  clearest  conception,  to  comprehend  how 
one  single  act  of  duration  should  measure  all  periods  and  portions 
of  time,  without  any  of  the  distinguishing  parts  of  succession. 
Likewise  for  his  justice ;  which  shall  prey  upon  the  sinner  for 
ever,  satisfying  itself  by  a  perpetual  miracle,  rendering  the  crea- 
ture immortal  in  the  midst  of  the  flames;  always  consuming,  but 
never  consumed.  With  the  like  wonders  we  may  entertain  our 
speculations  from  his  mercy,  his  beloved,  his  triumphant  attribute ; 
an  attribute,  if  it  were  possible,  something  more  than  infinite ; 
for  even  his  justice  is  so,  and  his  mercy  transcends  that.  Lastly, 
we  may  contemplate  upon  his  supernatural,  astonishing  works : 
particularly  in  the  resurrection,  and  reparation  of  the  same  numerical 
body,  by  a  re-union  of  all  the  scattered  parts,  to  be  at  length 
disposed  of  into  an  estate  of  eternal  woe  or  bliss ;  as  also  the 
greatness  and  strangeness  of  the  beatific  vision  ;  how  a  created 
eye  should  be  so  fortified,  as  to  bear  all  those  glories  that  stream 
from  the  fountain  of  uncreated  light,  the  meanest  expression  of 
w^hich  light  is,  that  it  is  inexpressible.  Now  what  great  and 
high  objects  are  these,  for  a  rational  contemplation  to  busy  itself 
upon !  Heights  that  scorn  the  reach  of  our  prospect ;  and  depths 
in  which  the  tallest  reason  will  never  touch  the  bottom:  yet 
surely  the  pleasure  arising  from  thence  is  great  and  noble ;  for- 
asmuch as  they  afford  perpetual  matter  and  employment  to  the 
inquisitiveness  of  human  reason  ;  and  so  are  large  enough  for  it 
to  take  its  full  scope  and  range  in :  which,  when  it  has  sucked 
and  drained  the  utmost  of  an  object,  naturally  lays  it  aside,  and 
neglects  it  as  a  dry  and  empty  thing. 

(2.)  As  the  things  belonging  to  religion  entertain  our  specula- 


PLEASANTNESS  OF  WISDOM'S  WAYS. 


11 


tion  with  great  objects,  so  they  entertain  it  also  with  new:  and 
novelty  we  know  is  the  great  parent  of  pleasure ;  upon  which 
account  it  is  that  men  are  so  much  pleased  with  variety,  and  va- 
riety is  nothing  else  but  a  continued  novelty.  The  Athenians, 
who  were  the  professed  and  most  diligent  improvers  of  their  rea- 
son, made  it  their  whole  business  "  to  hear  or  to  tell  some  new 
thing;"  for  the  truth  is,  newness,  especially  in  great  matters,  was 
a  worthy  entertainment  for  a  searching  mind  ;  it  was  (as  I  may 
so  say)  a  high  taste,  fit  for  the  relish  of  an  Athenian  reason. 
And  thereupon  the  mere  unheard-of  strangeness  of  Jesus  and  the 
resurrection,  made  them  desirous  to  hear  it  discoursed  of  to  them 
again,  Acts  xvii.  23.  But  how  would  it  have  employed  their 
searching  faculties,  had  the  mystery  of  the  Trinity,  and  the  incar- 
nation of  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  whole  economy  of  man's  re- 
demption, been  explained  to  them !  For  how  could  it  ever  enter 
into  the  thoughts  of  reason,  that  a  satisfaction  could  be  paid  to 
an  infinite  justice  ?  or,  that  two  natures  so  inconceivably  differ- 
ent, as  the  human  and  divine,  could  unite  into  one  person  ?  The 
knowledge  of  these  things  could  derive  from  nothing  else  but 
pure  revelation,  and  consequently  must  be  purely  new  to  the 
highest  discourses  of  mere  nature.  Now  that  the  newness  of  an 
object  so  exceedingly  pleases  and  strikes  the  mind,  appears  from 
this  one  consideration ;  that  every  thing  pleases  more  in  expecta- 
tion than  fruition :  and  expectation  supposes  a  thing  as  yet  new, 
the  hoped-for  discovery  of  which  is  the  pleasure  that  entertains 
the  expecting  and  inquiring  mind :  whereas  actual  discovery,  as 
it  were,  rifles  and  deflowers  the  newness  and  freshness  of  the 
object,  and  so,  for  the  most  part,  makes  it  cheap,  familiar,  and 
contemptible. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  if  there  be  any  pleasure  to  the  mind 
from  speculation,  and  if  this  pleasure  of  speculation  be  advanced 
by  the  greatness  and  newness  of  the  things  contemplated  upon, 
all  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  way  of  religion. 

2.  In  the  next  place,  religion  is  a  pleasure  to  the  mind,  as  it 
respects  practice,  and  so  sustains  the  name  of  conscience.  And 
conscience  undoubtedly  is  the  great  repository  and  magazine  of 
all  those  pleasures  that  can  afford  any  solid  refreshment  to  the 
soul.  For  when  this  is  calm,  and  serene,  and  absolving,  then, 
properly,  a  man  enjoys  all  things,  and  what  is  more,  himself;  for 
that  he  must  do,  before  he  can  enjoy  any  thing  else.  But  it  is 
only  a  pious  life,  led  exactly  by  the  rules  of  a  severe  religion, 
that  can  authorize  a  man's  conscience  to  speak  comfortably  to 
him :  it  is  this  that  must  word  the  sentence,  before  the  conscience 
can  pronounce  it,  and  then  it  will  do  it  with  majesty  and  author- 
ity ;  it  will  not  whisper  but  proclaim  a  jubilee  to  the  mind  ;  it 
will  not  drop,  but  pour  in  oil  upon  the  wounded  heart.  And  is 
there  any  pleasure  comparable  to  that  which  springs  from  hence  ? 
The  pleasure  of  conscience  is  not  only  greater  than  all  other 


12 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  l 


pleasures,  but  may  also  serve  instead  of  them :  for  they  only 
please  and  affect  the  mind  in  transitu,  in  the  pitiful  narrow 
compass  of  actual  fruition  ;  whereas  that  of  conscience  entertains 
and  feeds  it  a  long  time  after  with  durable,  lasting  reflections. 

And  thus  much  for  the  first  ennobling  property  of  the  pleasure 
belonging  to  religion  ;  namely,  that  it  is  the  pleasure  of  the  mind  ; 
and  that  both  as  it  relates  to.  speculation,  and  is  called  the  under- 
standing, and  as  it  relates  to  practice,  and  is  called  the  con- 
science. 

II.  The  second  ennobling  property  of  it  is,  That  it  is  such  a 
pleasure  as  never  satiates  or  wearies :  for  it  properly  affects  the 
spirit,  and  a  spirit  feels  no  weariness,  as  being  privileged  from 
the  causes  of  it.  But  can  the  epicure  say  so  of  any  of  the  plea- 
sures that  he  so  much  dotes  upon  ?  Do  they  not  expire  while 
they  satisfy ;  and,  after  a  few  minutes'  refreshment,  determine  in 
loathing  and  unquietness?  How  short  is  the  interval  between  a 
pleasure  and  a  burden!  How  undiscernible  the  transition  from 
one  to  the  other!  Pleasure  dwells  no  longer  upon  the  appetite, 
than  the  necessities  of  nature,  which  are  quickly  and  easily  pro- 
vided for ;  and  then  all  that  follows  is  a  load  and  an  oppression. 
Every  morsel  to  a  satisfied  hunger,  is  only  a  new  labour  to  a  tired 
digestion.  Every  draught  to  him  that  has  quenched  his  thirst,  is 
but  a  farther  quenching  of  nature  ;  a  provision  for  rheum  and 
diseases,  a  drowning  of  the  quickness  and  activity  of  the  spirits. 

He  that  prolongs  his  meals,  and  sacrifices  his  time,  as  well  as 
his  other  conveniences,  to  his  luxury,  how  quickly  does  he  outsit 
his  pleasure !  And  then,  how  is  all  the  following  time  bestowed 
upon  ceremony  and  surfeit!  till  at  length,  after  a  long  fatigue  of 
eating,  and  drinking,  and  babbling,  he  concludes  the  great  work 
of  dining  genteelly,  and  so  makes  a  shift  to  rise  from  table,  that 
he  may  lie  down  upon  his  bed :  where,  after  he  has  slept  himself 
into  some  use  of  himself,  by  much  ado  he  staggers  to  his  table 
again,  and  there  acts  over  the  same  brutish  scene :  so  that  he 
passes  his  whole  life  in  a  dozed  condition  between  sleeping  and 
waking,  with  a  kind  of  drowsiness  and  confusion  upon  his  senses ; 
which,  what  pleasure  it  can  be,  is  hard  to  conceive ;  all  that  is  of 
it,  dwells  upon  the  tip  of  his  tongue,  and  within  the  compass  of  his 
palate :  a  worthy  prize  for  a  man  to  purchase  with  the  loss  of  his 
time,  his  reason,  and  himself. 

Nor  is  that  man  less  deceived,  that  thinks  to  maintain  a 
constant  tenure  of  pleasure,  by  a  continual  pursuit  of  sports  and 
recreations :  for  it  is  most  certainly  true  of  all  these  things,  that 
as  they  refresh  a  man  when  he  is  weary  ,  so  they  weary  him  when 
he  is  refreshed ;  which  is  an  evident  demonstration  that  God 
never  designed  the  use  of  them  to  be  continual ;  by  putting  such 
an  emptiness  in  them,  as  should  so  quickly  fail  and  lurch  the 
expectation. 


PLEASANTNESS  OF  WISDOM'S  WAYS. 


13 


The  most  voluptuous  and  loose  person  breathing,  were  he  but 
tied  to  follow  his  hawks  and  his  hounds,  his  dice  and  his  court- 
ships every  day,  would  find  it  the  greatest  torment  and  calamity 
that  could  befall  him ;  he  would  fly  to  the  mines  and  the  galleys 
for  his  recreation,  and  to  the  spade  and  the  mattock  for  a  diversion 
from  the  misery  of  a  continual  unintermitted  pleasure. 

But,  on  the  contrary,  the  providence  of  God  has  so  ordered 
the  course  of  things,  that  there  is  no  action,  the  usefulness  of 
which  has  made  it  the  matter  of  duty,  and  of  a  profession,  but  a 
man  may  bear  the  continual  pursuit  of  it,  without  loathing  or 
satiety.  The  same  shop  and  trade,  that  employs  a  man  in  his 
youth,  employs  him  also  in  his  age.  Every  morning  he  rises 
fresh  to  his  hammer  and  his  anvil  ;  he  passes  the  day  singing : 
custom  has  naturalized  his  labour  to  him :  his  shop  is  his  element, 
and  he  cannot,  with  any  enjoyment  of  himself,  live  out  of  it. 
Whereas  no  custom  can  make  the  painfulness  of  a  debauch  easy 
or  pleasing  to  a  man ;  since  nothing  can  be  pleasant  that  is  un- 
natural. But  now,  if  God  has  interwoven  such  a  pleasure  with 
the  works  of  our  ordinary  calling ;  how  much  superior  and  more 
refined  must  that  be,  that  arises  from  the  survey  of  a  pious  and 
well-governed  life !  surely,  as  much  as  Christianity  is  nobler  than  a 
trade. 

And  then,  for  the  constant  freshness  of  it ;  it  is  such  a  plea- 
sure as  can  never  cloy  or  overwork  the  mind  :  for,  surely  no  man 
was  ever  weary  of  tkinki?ig,  much  less  of  thinking  that  he  had 
done  well  or  virtuously,  that  he  had  conquered  such  and  such  a 
temptation,  or  offered  violence  to  any  of  his  exorbitant  desires. 
This  is  a  delight  that  grows  and  improves  under  thought  and 
reflection:  and  while  it  exercises,  does  also  endear  itself  to  the 
mind  ;  at  the  same  time  employing  and  inflaming  the  meditations. 
All  pleasures  that  affect  the  body,  must  needs  weary,  because 
they  transport,  and  all  transportatic  n  is  violence :  and  no  violence 
can  be  lasting,  but  determines  upon  the  falling  of  the  spirits, 
which  are  not  able  to  keep  up  that  height  of  motion  that  the 
pleasure  of  the  senses  raise  them  to  :  and  therefore  how  inevi- 
tably does  an  immoderate  laughter  end  in  a  sigh !  which  is 
only  nature's  recovering  itself  after  a  force  done  to  it.  But  the 
religious  pleasure  of  a  well-disposed  mind  moves  gently,  and 
therefore  constantlv ;  it  does  not  affect  by  rapture  and  ecstasy  ; 
but  is  like  the  pleasure  of  health,  which  is  still  and  sober, 
yet  greater  and  stronger  than  those  that  call  up  the  senses  with 
grosser  and  more  affecting  impressions.  God  has  given  no  man 
a  body  as  strong  as  his  appetites,  but  has  corrected  the  boundless- 
ness of  his  voluptuous  desires,  by  stinting  his  strength,  and 
contracting  his  capacities. 

But  to  look  upon  those  pleasures,  also,  that  have  a  higher  ob- 
ject than  the  body ;  as  those  that  spring  from  honour  and  gran- 
deur of  condition :  vet  we  shall  find  that  even  these  are  not  so 

B 


14 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  I. 


fresh  and  constant,  but  the  mind  can  nauseate  them,  and  quickly 
feel  the  thinness  of  a  popular  breath.  Those  that  are  so  fond  of 
applause  while  they  pursue  it,  how  little  do  they  taste  it  when 
they  have  it !  Like  lightning,  it  only  flashes  upon  the  face,  and 
is  gone,  and  it  is  well  if  it  does  not  hurt  the  man.  But  for  great- 
ness of  place,  though  it  is  fit  and  necessary  that  some  persons  in 
the  world  should  be  in  love  with  a  splendid  servitude,  yet  certainly 
they  must  be  much  beholden  to  their  own  fancy,  that  they  can 
be  pleased  at  it.  For  he  that  rises  up  early  and  goes  to  bed  late, 
only  to  receive  addresses,  to  read  and  answer  petitions,  is  really 
as  much  tied  and  abridged  in  his  freedom,  as  he  that  waits  all 
that  time  to  present  one.  And  what  pleasure  can  it  be  to  be 
encumbered  with  dependencies,  thronged  and  surrounded  with 
petitioners,  and  those  perhaps  sometimes  all  suitors  for  the  same 
thing?  whereupon  all  but  one  will  be  sure  to  depart  grumbling, 
because  they  miss  of  what  they  think  their  due ;  and  even  that  one 
scarce  thankful,  because  he  thinks  he  has  no  more  than  his  due. 
In  a  word,  if  it  is  a  pleasure  to  be  envied  and  shot  at,  to  be 
maligned  standing,  and  to  be  despised  falling,  to  endeavour  that 
which  is  impossible,  which  is  to  please  all,  and  to  suffer  for  not 
doing  it ;  then  is  it  a  pleasure  to  be  great,  and  to  be  able  to  dispose 
of  men's  fortunes  and  preferments. 

But  farther,  to  proceed  from  hence  to  yet  a  higher  degree  of 
pleasure,  indeed  the  highest  on  this  side  that  of  religion ;  which 
is  the  pleasure  of  friendship  and  conversation.  Friendship  must 
confessedly  be  allowed  'the  top,  the  flower,  and  crown  of  all 
temporal  enjoyments.  Yet  has  not  this  also  its  flaws  and  its  dark 
side  ?  for  is  not  my  friend  a  man  ?  and  is  not  friendship  subject 
to  the  same  mortality  and  change  that  men  are?  And  in  case 
a  man  loves,  and  is  not  loved  again,  does  he  not  think  that  he 
has  cause  to  hate  as  heartily,  and  ten  times  more  eagerly  than 
ever  he  loved  ?  And  then  to  be  an  enemy,  and  once  to  have 
been  a  friend,  does  it  not  embitter  the  rupture,  and  aggravate  the 
calamity  ?  But  admitting  that  my  friend  continues  so  to  the  end ; 
yet,  in  the  meantime,  is  he  all  perfection,  all  virtue,  and  discre- 
tion ?  Has  he  not  humours  to  be  endured,  as  well  as  kindnesses 
to  be  enjoyed  ?  And  am  I  sure  to  smell  the  rose  without  sometimes 
feeling  the  thorn  ? 

And  then,  lastly,  for  company ;  though  it  may  reprieve  a  man 
from  his  melancholy,  yet  it  cannot  secure  him  from  his  conscience, 
nor  from  sometimes  being  alone.  And  what  is  all  that  a  man 
enjoys,  from  a  week's,  a  month's,  or  ,a  year's  converse,  comparable 
to  what  he  feels  for  one  hour  when  his  conscience  shall  take  him 
aside,  and  rate  him  by  himself? 

In  short,  run  over  the  whole  circle  of  all  earthly  pleasures, 
and  I  dare  affirm,  that  had  not  God  secured  a  man  a  solid  pleasure 
from  his  own  actions,  after  he  had  rolled  from  one  to  another,  and 
enjoyed  them  all,  he  would  be  forced  to  complain,  that  either 


PLEASANTNESS  OF  WISDOM'S  WAYS. 


15 


they  were  not  indeed  pleasures,  or  that  pleasure  was  not  satisfac- 
tion. 

III.  The  third  ennobling  property  of  the  pleasure  that  accrues 
to  a  man  from  religion,  is,  that  it  is  such  a  one  as  is  in  nobody's 
power,  but  only  in  his  that  has  it;  so  that  he  who  has  the  pro- 
perty may  be  also  sure  of  the  perpetuity.  And  tell  me  so  of 
any'  outward  enjoyment  that  mortality  is  capable  of.  We  are 
generally  at  the  mercy  of  men's  rapine,  avarice,  and  violence, 
whether  we  shall  be  happy  or  no.  For  if  I  build  my  felicity 
upon  my  estate  or  reputation,  I  am  happy  as  long  as  the  tyrant  or 
the  railer  will  give  me  leave  to  be  so.  But  when  my  concernment 
takes  up  no  more  room  or  compass  than  myself,  then  so  long  as 
I  know  where  to  breathe  and  to  exist,  I  know  also  where  to  be 
happy:  for  I  know  I  may  be  so  in  my  own  breast,  in  the  court 
of  my  own  conscience;  where,  if  I  can  but  prevail  with  myself 
to  be  innocent,  I  need  bribe  neither  judge  nor  officer  to  be  pro- 
nounced so.  The  pleasure  of  the  religious  man  is  an  easy  and 
a  portable  pleasure,  such  a  one  as  he  carries  about  in  his  bosom, 
without  alarming  either  the  eye  or  envy  of  the  world.  A  man  put- 
ting all  his  pleasures  into  this  one,  is  like  a  traveller's  putting  all 
his  goods  into  one  jewel;  the  value  is  the  same,  and  the  con- 
venience greater. 

There  is  nothing  that  can  raise  a  man  to  that  generous  abso- 
luteness of  condition,  as  neither  to  cringe,  to  fawn,  or  to  depend 
meanly ;  but  that  which  gives  him  that  happiness  within  himself, 
for  which  men  depend  upon  others.  For  surely  I  need  salute  no 
great  man's  threshold,  sneak  to  none  of  his  friends  or  servants, 
to  speak  a  good  word  for  me  to  my  conscience.  It  is  a  noble 
and  a  sure  defiance  of  a  great  malice,  backed  with  a  great  interest ; 
which  yet  can  have  no  advantage  of  a  man,  but  from  his  own 
expectations  of  something  that  is  without  himself.  But  if  I  can 
make  my  duty  my  delight ;  if  I  can  feast,  and  please,  and  caress 
my  mind  with  the  pleasures  of  worthy  speculations,  or  virtuous 
practices ;  let  greatness  and  malice  vex  and  abridge  me  if  they 
can :  my  pleasures  are  as  free  as  my  will ;  no  more  to  be  controlled 
than  my  choice,  or  the  unlimited  range  of  my  thoughts  and  my 
desires. 

Nor  is  this  kind .  of  pleasure  only  out  of  the  reach  of  any  out- 
ward violence,  but  even  those  things  also  that  make  a  much  closer 
impression  upon  us,  which  are  the  irresistible  decays  of  nature, 
have  yet  no  influence  at  all  upon  this.  For  when  age  itself, 
which  of  all  things  in  the  world  will  not  be  baffled  or  defied, 
shall  begin  to  arrest,  seize,  and  remind  us  of  our  mortality  by 
pains,  aches,  deadness  of  limbs,  and  dullness  of  senses,  yet  then 
the  pleasures  of  the  mind  shall  be  in  its  full  youth,  vigour,  and 
freshness.  A  palsy  may  as  well  shake  an  oak,  or  a  fever  dry  up 
a  fountain,  as  either  of  them  shake,  dry  up,  or  impair  the  delight 


16 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  I. 


of  conscience.  For  it  lies  within,  it  centres  in  the  heart,  it  grows 
into  the  very  substance  of  the  soul,  so  that  it  accompanies  a  man 
to  his  grave;  he  never  outlives  it,  and  that  for  this  cause  only, 
because  he  cannot  outlive  himself. 

And  thus  I  have  endeavoured  to  describe  the  excellency  of 
that  pleasure  that  is  to  be  found  in  the  ways  of  a  religious  wisdom, 
by  those  excellent  properties  that  do  attend  it ;  which  whether  they 
reach  the  description  that  has  been  given  them  or  no,  every  man 
may  convince  himself,  by  the  best  of  demonstrations,  which  is  his 
own  trial. 

Now,  from  all  this  discourse,  this  I  am  sure  is  a  most  natural 
and  direct  consequence,  that  if  the  ways  of  religion  are  ways  of 
pleasantness,  such  as  are  not  ways  of  pleasantness,  are  not  truly 
and  properly  ways  of  religion.  Upon  which  ground  it  is  easy  to 
see  what  judgment  is  to  be  passed  upon  all  those  affected,  uncom- 
manded,  absurd  austerities,  so  much  prized  and  exercised  by  some 
of  the  Romish  profession.  Pilgrimages,  going  barefoot,  hair-shirts, 
and  whips,  with  other  such  gospel  artillery,  are  their  only  helps  to 
devotion;  things  never  enjoined,  either  by  the  prophets  under 
the  Jewish,  or  by  the  apostles  under  the  Christian  economy ;  who 
yet  surely  understood  the  proper  and  the  most  efficacious  instruments 
of  piety  as  well  as  any  confessor  or  friar  of  all  the  order  of  St. 
Francis,  or  any  casuist  whatsoever. 

It  seems  that,  with  them,  a  man  sometimes  cannot  be  a  penitent, 
unless  he  also  turns  vagabond,  and  foots  it  to  Jerusalem,  or  wanders 
over  this  or  that  part  of  the  world  to  visit  the  shrine  of  such  or  such 
a  pretended  saint,  though  perhaps,  in  his  life,  ten  times  more 
ridiculous  than  themselves :  thus,  that  which  was  Cain's  curse, 
is  become  their  religion.  He  that  thinks  to  expiate  a  sin  by  going 
barefoot,  only  makes  one  folly  the  atonement  for  another;  Paul 
indeed  was  scourged  and  beaten  by  the  Jews,  but  we  never  read 
that  he  beat  or  scourged  himself;  and  if  they  think  "that  his 
keeping  under  of  his  body"  imports  so  much,  they  must  first  prove 
that  the  body  cannot  be  kept  under  by  a  virtuous  mind,  and  that 
the  mind  cannot  be  made  virtuous  but  by  a  scourge,  and  conse- 
quently, that  thongs  and  whipcord  are  means  of  grace  and  things 
necessary  to  salvation.  The  truth  is,  if  men's  religion  lies  no 
deeper  than  their  skin,  it  is  possible  that  they  may  scourge 
themselves  into  very  great  improvements. 

But  they  will  find  that  "  bodily  exercise"  touches  not  the  soul ; 
and  that  neither  pride,  nor  lust,  nor  covetousness,  nor  any  other 
vice,  was  ever  mortified  by  corporal  discipline :  it  is  not  the  back, 
but  the  heart,  that  must  bleed  for  sin :  and  consequently,  that  in 
this  whole  course  they  are  like  men  out  of  their  way ;  let  them  lash 
on  never  so  fast,  they  are  not  at  all  the  nearer  to  their  journey's 
end ;  and  howsoever  they  deceive  themselves  and  others,  they 
may  as  well  expect  to  bring  a  cart  as  a  soul  to  heaven  by  such 
means.    What  arguments  they  have  to  beguile  poor,  simple,  unstable 


PLEASANTNESS  OF  WISDOM'S  WAYS. 


17 


souls  with,  I  know  not ;  but  surely  the  practical,  casuistical,  that 
is,  the  principal,  vital  part  of  their  religion  savours  very  little  of 
spirituality. 

And  now  upon  the  result  of  all,  I  suppose  that  to  exhort  men 
to  be  religious,  is  only  in  other  words  to  exhort  them  to  take 
their  pleasure.  A  pleasure  high,  rational,  and  angelical ;  a 
pleasure  embased  with  no  appendant  sting,  no  consequent  loathing, 
no  remorses  or  bitter  farewells ;  but  such  a  one,  as,  being  honey 
in  the  mouth,  never  turns  to  gall  or  gravel  in  the  belly ;  a  pleasure 
made  for  the  soul,  and  the  soul  for  that,  suitable  to  its  spirituality, 
and  equal  to  all  its  capacities.  Such  a  one  as  grows  fresher  upon 
enjoyment,  and  though  continually  fed  upon,  yet  is  never  devoured. 
A  pleasure  that  a  man  may  call  as  properly  his  own,  as  his 
soul  and  his  conscience ;  neither  liable  to  accident,  nor  exposed 
to  injury;  for  it  is  the  foretaste  of  heaven,  and  the  earnest  of 
eternity.  In  a  word,  it  is  such  a  one,  as  being  begun  in  grace, 
passes  into  glory,  blessedness,  and  immortality,  and  those  pleasures 
"  that  neither  eye  has  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  has  it  entered 
into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive." 

To  which  God  of  his  mercy  vouchsafe  to  bring  us  all :  to  whom 
be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise,  might, 
majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


Vol.  I.— 3 


A  SERMON 


PREACHED  AT  THE  CATHEDRAL  CHURCH  OF  ST.  PAUL, 
November  9,  1662. 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY. 

TO  THE  RIGHT  HONOURABLE 

THE  LORD-MAYOR  AND  ALDERMEN  OF  THE  CITY  OF  LONDON. 

Right  Honourable, 

When  I  consider  how  impossible  it  is  for  a  person  of  my  condition  to 
produce,  and  consequently  how  imprudent  to  attempt  any  thing  in 
proportion  either  to  the  ampleness  of  the  body  you  represent,  or  of 
the  places  you  bear,  I  should  be  kept  from  venturing  so  poor  a  piece, 
designed  to  live  but  an  hour,  in  so  lasting  a  publication ;  did  not  what 
your  civility  calls  a  request,  your  greatness  render  a  command.  The 
truth  is,  in  things  not  unlawful  great  persons  cannot  be  properly  said 
to  request ;  because,  all  things  considered,  they  must  not  be  denied. 
To  me  it  was  honour  enough  to  have  your  audience,  enjoyment 
enough  to  behold  your  happy  change,  and  to  see  the  same  city,  the 
metropolis  of  loyalty  and  of  the  kingdom,  to  behold  the  glory  of  Eng- 
lish churches  reformed,  that  is,  delivered  from  the  reformers ;  and  to 
find  at  least  the  service  of  the  church  repaired,  though  not  the  build- 
ing ;  to  see  St.  Paul's  delivered  from  beasts  here,  as  well  as  St.  Paul 
at  Ephesus ;  and  to  view  the  church  thronged  only  with  troops  of 
auditors,  not  of  horse.  This  I  could  fully  have  acquiesced  in,  and 
received  a  large  personal  reward  in  my  particular  share  of  the  public 
joy;  but  since  you  are  farther  pleased,  I  will  not  say  by  your  judg- 
ment to  approve,  but  by  your  acceptance  to  encourage,  the  raw 
endeavours  of  a  young  divine,  I  shall  take  it  for  an  opportunity,  not 
as  others  in  their  sage  prudence  use  to  do,  to  quote  three  or  four 
texts  of  scripture,  and  to  tell  you  how  you  are  to  rule  the  city  out  of 
a  concordance  ;  no,  I  bring  not  instructions,  but  what  much  better 
befits  both  you  and  myself,  your  commendations.    For  I  look  upon 

19 


20  EPISTLE  DEDICATORY. 

your  city  as  the  great  and  magnificent  stage  of  business,  and  by  con- 
sequence the  best  place  of  improvement ;  for  from  the  school  we  go 
to  the  university,  but  from  the  university  to  London.  And  therefore, 
as  in  your  city  meetings  you  must  be  esteemed  the  most  considerable 
body  of  the  nation,  so,  met  in  the  church,  I  look  upon  you  as  an 
auditory  fit  to  be  waited  on,  as  you  are,  by  both  universities.  And 
when  I  remember  how  instrumental  you  have  been  to  recover  this 
universal  settlement,  and  to  retrieve  the  old  spirit  of  loyalty  to  kings 
(as  an  ancient  testimony  of  which  you  bear  not  the  sword  in  vain),  I 
seem  in  a  manner  deputed  from  Oxford,  not  so  much  a  preacher  to 
supply  a  course,  as  orator  to  present  her  thanks.  As  for  the  ensu- 
ing discourse,  which  (lest  I  chance  to  be  traduced  for  a  plagiary  by 
him  who  has  played  the  thief)  I  think  fit  to  tell  the  world,  by  the 
way,  was  one  of  those  that  by  a  worthy  hand  were  stolen  from  me 
in  the  king's  chapel,  and  are  still  detained ;  and  to  which,  now  acci- 
dentally published  by  your  honours'  order,  your  patronage  must  give 
both  value  and  protection.  You  will  find  me  in  it  not  to  have  pitched 
upon  any  subject,  that  men's  guilt,  and  the  consequence  of  guilt, 
their  concernment,  might  render  liable  to  exception ;  nor  to  have 
rubbed  up  the  memory  of  what  some  heretofore  in  the  city  did,  which 
more  and  better  now  detest,  and  therefore  expiate  :  but  my  subject 
is  inoffensive,  harmless,  and  innocent  as  the  state  of  innocence  itself, 
and  I  hope  suitable  to  the  present  design  and  genius  of  this  nation ; 
which  is,  or  should  be,  to  return  to  that  innocence,  which  it  lost  long 
since  the  fall.  Briefly,  my  business  is,  by  describing  what  man  was 
in  his  first  estate,  to  upbraid  him  with  what  he  is  in  his  present : 
between  whom,  innocent  and  fallen  (that  in  a  word  I  may  suit  the 
subject  to  the  place  of  my  discourse),  there  is  as  great  an  unlikeness, 
as  between  St.  Paul's  a  cathedral,  and  St.  Paul's  a  stable.  But  I  must 
not  forestall  myself,  nor  transcribe  the  work  into  the  dedication.  I 
shall  now  only  desire  you  to  accept  the  issue  of  your  own  requests ; 
the  gratification  of  which  I  have  here  consulted  so  much  before  my 
own  reputation ;  while,  like  the  poor  widow,  I  endeavour  to  show 
my  officiousness  by  an  offering,  though  I  betray  my  poverty  by  the 
measure  ;  not  so  much  caring,  though  I  appear  neither  preacher  nor 
scholar  (which  terms  we  have  been  taught  upon  good  reason  to  dis- 
tinguish), so  I  may  in  this  but  show  myself 

Your  Honours'  very  humble  Servant, 

Robert  South. 

Worcester  House,  Nov.  24,  1662. 


21 


SERMON  II. 

of  the  creation  of  man  in  the  image  of  god. 
Genesis  i.  27. 

So  God  created  man  in  his  own  image,  in  the  image  of  God  created 

he  him. 

How  hard  it  is  for  natural  reason  to  discover  a  creation  before 
revealed,  or  being  revealed  to  believe  it,  the  strange  opinions  of 
the  old  philosophers,  and  the  infidelity  of  modem  atheists,  is  too 
sad  a  demonstration.  To  run  the  world  back  to  its  first  original 
and  infancy,  and  (as  it  were)  to  view  nature  in  its  cradle,  and 
trace  the  out- goings  of  the  Ancient  of  days  in  the  first  instance 
and  specimen  of  his  creative  power,  is  a  research  too  great  for 
^iny  mortal  inquiry  ;  and  we  might  continue  our  scrutiny  to  the 
end  of  the  world,  before  natural  reason  would  be  able  to  find  out 
when  it  begun. 

Epicurus's  discourse  concerning  the  original  of  the  world  is 
so  fabulous  and  ridiculously  merry,  that  we  may  well  judge 
the  design  of  his  philosophy  to  have  been  pleasure,  and  not 
instruction. 

Aristotle  held,  that  it  streamed  by  connatural  result  and 
emanation  from  God,  the  infinite  and  eternal  mind,  as  the  light 
issues  from  the  sun  ;  so  that  there  was  no  instant  of  duration 
assignable  of  God's  eternal  existence,  in  which  the  world  did  not 
also  coexist. 

Others  held  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms ;  but  all  seem 
jointly  to  explode  a  creation  ;  still  beating  upon  this  ground, 
that  the  producing  something  out  of  nothing  is  impossible  and 
incomprehensible ;  incomprehensible  indeed  I  grant,  but  not 
therefore  impossible.  There  is  not  the  least  transaction  of  sense 
and  motion  in  the  whole  man,  but  philosophers  are  at  a  loss  to 
comprehend,  I  am  sure  they  are  to  explain  it.  Wherefore,  it  is 
not  always  rational  to  measure  the  truth  of  an  assertion  by  the 
standard  of  our  apprehension. 

But  to  bring  things  even  to  the  bare  perceptions  of  reason,  I 
appeal  to  any  one  who  shall  impartially  reflect  upon  the  ideas 
and  conceptions  of  his  own  mind,  whether  he  doth  not  find  it 
as  easy  and  suitable  to  his  natural  notions  to  conceive  that  an 
infinite  Almighty  power  might  produce  a  thing  out  of  nothing 
and  make  that  to  exist  de  novo,  which  did  not  exist  before ;  as  to 


22 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  n. 


conceive  the  world  to  have  had  no  beginning,  but  to  have  existed 
from  eternity:  which,  were  it  so  proper  for  this  place  and 
exercise,  I  could  easily  demonstrate  to  be  attended  with  no  small 
train  of  absurdities.  But  then,  besides  that  the  acknowledging 
of  a  creation  is  safe,  and  the  denial  of  it  dangerous  and 
irreligious,  and  yet  not  more,  perhaps  much  less,  demonstrable 
than  the  affirmative ;  so,  over  and  above,  it  gives  me  this 
advantage,  that,  let  it  seem  never  so  strange,  uncouth,  and 
incomprehensible,  the  nonplus  of  my  reason  will  yield  a  fairer 
opportunity  to  my  faith. 

In  this  chapter  we  have  God  surveying  the  works  of  the 
creation,  and  leaving  this  general  impress  or  character  upon  them, 
"  that  they  were  exceeding  good."  What  an  omnipotence 
wrought,  we  have  an  omniscience  to  approve.  But  as  it  is 
reasonable  to  imagine  that  there  is  more  of  design,  and 
consequently  more  of  perfection,  in  the  last  work,  we  have  God 
here  giving  his  last  stroke,  and  summing  up  all  into  man,  the 
whole  into  a  part,  the  universe  into  an  individual :  so  that 
whereas  in  other  creatures  we  have  but  the  trace  of  his  footsteps, 
in  man  we  have  the  draught  of  his  hand.  In  him  were  united 
all  the  scattered  perfections  of  the  creature,  all  the  graces  and 
ornaments  ;  all  the  airs  and  features  of  being  were  abridged  into 
this  small,  yet  full  system  of  nature  and  divinity :  as  we  might  well 
imagine  that  the  great  artificer  would  be  more  than  ordinarily 
exact  in  drawing  his  own  picture. 

The  work  that  I  shall  undertake  from  these  words,  shall  be  to 
show  what  this  image  of  God  in  man  is,  and  wherein  it  doth 
consist.  Which  I  shall  do  these  two  ways  :  1.  Negatively,  by 
showing  wherein  it  does  not  consist.  2.  Positively,  by  showing 
wherein  it  does. 

For  the  first  of  these,  we  are  to  remove  the  erroneous  opinion 
of  the  Socinians.  They  deny  that  the  image  of  God  consisted 
in  any  habitual  perfections  that  adorned  the  soul  of  Adam  :  but 
as  to  his  understanding  bring  him  in  void  of  all  notion,  a  rude 
unwritten  blank  ;  making  him  to  be  created  as  much  an  infant 
as  others  are  born  ;  sent  into  the  world  only  to  read  and  to  spell 
out  a  God  in  the  works  of  creation,  to  learn  by  degrees,  till  at 
length  his  understanding  grew  up  to  the  stature  of  his  body  ;  also 
without  any  inherent  habits  of  virtue  in  his  will ;  thus  divesting 
him  of  all,  and  stripping  him  to  his  bare  essence ;  so  that  all 
the  perfection  they  alldwed  his  understanding  was  aptness  and 
docility,  and  all  that  they  attributed  to  his  will  was  a  possibility 
to  be  virtuous. 

But  wherein,  then,  according  to  their  opinion,  did  this  image 
of  God  consist  ?  Why,  in  that  power  and  dominion  that  God 
gave  Adam  over  the  creatures  ;  in  that  he  was  vouched  his 
immediate  deputy  upon  earth,  the  viceroy  of  the  creation,  and  lord 
lieutenant  of  the  world.    But  that  this  power  and  dominion  is  not 


MAN  CREATED  IN  THE  IMAGE  OF  GOD. 


23 


adequately  and  formally  the  image  of  God,  but  only  a  part  of  it, 
is  clear  from  hence:  because  then  he  that  had  most  of  this,  would 
have  most  of  God's  image  ;  and  consequently  Nimrod  had  more 
of  it  than  Noah,  Saul  than  Samuel,  the  persecutors  than  the 
martyrs,  and  Csesar  than  Christ  himself,  which  to  assert  is  a 
blasphemous  paradox.  And  if  the  image  of  God  is  only  grandeur, 
power,  and  sovereignty,  certainly  we  have  been  hitherto  much 
mistaken  in  our  duty :  and  hereafter  are  by  all  means  to  beware  of 
making  ourselves  unlike  God,  by  too  much  self-denial  and  humility. 
I  am  not  ignorant  that  some  may  distinguish  between  it-wola  and 
bvrafns,  between  a  lawful  authority  and  actual  power ;  and  affirm, 
that  God's  image  consists  only  in  the  former,  which  wicked 
princes,  such  as  Saul  and  Nimrod,  have  not,  though  they  possess 
the  latter.    But  to  this  I  answer, 

1.  That  the  scripture  neither  makes  nor  owns  such  a  distinc- 
tion ;  nor  any  where  asserts,  that  when  princes  begin  to  be 
wicked  they  cease  of  right  to  be  governors!]  Add  to  this,  that 
when  God  renewed  this  charter  of  man's  sovereignty  over  the 
creatures  to  Noah  and  his  family,  we  find  no  exception  at  all, 
but  that  Cham  stood  as  fully  invested  with  this  right  as  any  of 

his  brethren.  •  / 

2.  But,  secondly,  this  savours  of  something  ranker  than  Socinian- 
ism,  even  the  tenants  of  the  fifth  monarchy,  and  of  sovereignty 
founded  only  upon  saintship,  and  therefore  fitter  to  be  answered  by 
the  judge,  than  the  divine ;  and  to  receive  its  confutation  at  the 
bar  of  justice,  than  from  the  pulpit. 

Having  now  made  our  way  through  this  false  opinion,  we  are 
in  the  next  place  to  lay  down  positively  what  this  image  of  God 
in  man  is.  It  is,  in  short,  that  universal  rectitude  of  all  the 
faculties  of  the  soul,  by  which  they  stand  apt  and  disposed  to 
their  respective  offices  and  operations  ;  which  will  be  more  fully 
set  forth,  by  taking  a  distinct  survey  of  it,  in  the  several  faculties 
belonging  to  the  soul. 

1.  In  the  understanding.  2.  In  the  will.  3.  In  the  passions 
or  affections. 

.  I.  And,  first,  for  its  noblest  faculty,  the  understanding :  it  was 
t  ^then  sublime,  clear,  and  aspiring,  and,  as  it  were,  the  soul's  upper 
/  region,  lofty  and  serene,  free  from  fhe  vapours  and  disturbances 
of  the  inferior  affections.  It  was  the  leading,  controlling  faculty ; 
all  the  passions  wore  the  colours  of  reason ;  it  was  not  consul, 
but  dictator.  Discourse  was  then  almost  as  quick  as  intuition  ; 
it  was  nimble  in  proposing,  firm  in  concluding ;  it  could  sooner 
determine  than  now  it  can  dispute.  Like  the  sun,  it  had  both 
light  and  agility ;  it  knew  no  rest,  but  in  motion  ;  no  quiet,  but 
in  activity.  It  did  not  so  properly  apprehend,  as  irradiate  the 
object ;  not  so  much  find,  as  make  things  intelligible.  It  did 
arbitrate  upon  the  several  reports  of  sense,  and  all  the  varieties 


24 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  n. 


of  imagination;  not  like  a  drowsy  judge,  only  hearing,  but  also 
directing  their  verdict.  In  sum,  it  was  vegete,  quick,  and  lively ; 
open  as  the  day,  untainted  as  the  morning,  full  of  the  innocence 
and  sprightliness  of  youth;  it  gave  the  soul  a  bright  and  a  full 
view  into  all  things,  and  was  not  only  a  window,  but  itself  the 
prospect.  Briefly,  there  is  as  much  difference  between  the  clear 
representations  of  the  understanding  then,  and  the  obscure  dis- 
coveries that  it  makes  now,  as  there  is  between  the  prospect  of  a 
casement,  and  of  a  keyhole. 

Now,  as  there  are  two  great  functions  of  the  soul,  contemplation 
and  practice,  according  to  that  general  division  of  objects,  some 
of  which  only  entertain  our  speculation,  others  also  employ  our 
actions ;  so  the  understanding,  with  relation  to  these,  not  because 
of  any  distinction  in  the  faculty  itself,  is  accordingly  divided  into 
speculative  and  practical ;  in  both  of  which  the  image  of  God  was 
then  apparent. 

1.  For  the  understanding  speculative.  There  are  some  general 
maxims  and  notions  in  the  mind  of  man,  which  are  the  rules  of 
discourse,  and  the  basis  of  all  philosophy.  As,  that  the  same 
thing  cannot  at  the  same  time  ^e,  and  not  be:  that  the  whole 
is  bigger  than  a  part :  that  two  dimensions,  severally  equal  to  a 
third,  must  also  be  equal  to  one  another.  Aristotle,  indeed, 
affirms  the  mind  to  be  at  first  a  mere  rasa  tabula  ;  and  that  these 
notions  are  not  ingenite,  and  imprinted  by  the  finger  of  nature, 
but  by  the  later  and  more  languid  impressions  of  sense ;  being 
only  the  reports  of  observation,  and  the  result  of  so  many  repeated 
experiments. 

But  to  this  I  answer  two  things. 

(1.)  That  these  notions  are  universal,  and  what  is  universal  must 
needs  proceed  from  some  universal,  constant  principle,  the  same 
in  all  particulars,  which  here  can  be  nothing  else  but  human 
nature. 

(2.)  These  cann  >t  be  infused  by  observation,  because  they  are 
the  rules  by  whiclLnen  take  their  first  apprehensions  and  observa- 
tions of  things,  anu  therefore  in  order  of  nature  must  needs  precede 
them ;  as  the  being  of  the  rule  must  be  before  its  application  to  the 
thing  directed  by  it.  From  whence  it  follows,  that  these  were 
notions  not  descending  from  us,  but  born  with  us ;  not  our 
offspring,  but  our  brethren  ;  and,  as  I  may  so  say,  such  as  we  were 
taught  without  the  help  of  a  teacher. 

Now  it  was  Adam's  happiness  in  the  state  of  innocence  to 
have  these  clear  and  unsullied.  He  came  into  the  world  a 
philosopher,  which  sufficiently  appeared  by  his  writing  the 
nature  of  things  upon  their  names  ;  he  could  view  essences  in 
themselves,  and  read  forms  without  the  comment  of  their 
respective  properties ;  he  could  see  consequents  yet  dormant  in 
their  principles,  and  effects  yet  unborn,  and  in  the  womb  of 
their  causes;  his  understanding  could  almost  pierce  into  future 


MAN  CREATED  IN  THE  IMAGE  OF  GOD. 


25 


contingents;  his  conjectures  improving  even  to  prophecy,  or  the 
certainties  of  prediction;  till  his  fall,  it  was  ignorant  of  nothing 
but  of  sin,  or  at  least  it  rested  in  the  notion,  without  the  smart 
of  the  experiment.  Could  any  difficulty  have  been  proposed, 
the  resolution  would  have  been  as  early  as  the  proposal ;  it  could 
not  have  had  time  to  settle  into  doubt.  Like  a  better  Archimedes, 
the  issue  of  all  his  inquiries  was  a  tvprjxa,  a  frp^xa,  the  offspring 
of  his  brain  without  the  sweat  of  his  brow.  Study  was  not 
then  a  duty,  night- watchings  were  needless;  the  light  of  reason 
wanted  not  the  assistance  of  a  candle.  This  is  the  doom  of  fallen 
man,  to  labour  in  the  fire,  to  seek  truth  in  projundo,  to  exhaust 
his  time  and  impair  his  health,  and  perhaps  to  spin  out  his 
days  and  himself  into  one  pitiful,  controverted  conclusion.  There 
was  then  no  poring,  no  struggling  with  memory,  no  straining 
for  invention ;  his  faculties  were  quick  and  expedite  ;  they  answered 
without  knocking,  they  were  ready  upon  the  first  summons,  there 
was  freedom  ana  firmness  in  all  their  operations.  '  I  confess  it 
is  difficult  for  us,  who  date  our  ignorance  from  our  first  being, 
and  were  still  bred  up  with  the  same  infirmities  about  us  with 
which  we  were  born,^  to  raise  our  thoughts  and  imaginations 
to  those  intellectual  perfections  that  attended  our  nature  in  the 
time  of  innocence,  as  it  is  for  a  peasant,  bred  up  in  the  obscuri- 
ties of  a  cottage,  to  fancy  in  his  mind  the  unseen  splendours  of 
a  court.  But  by  rating  positives  by  their  privatives,  and  other 
arts  of  reason  by  which  discourse  supplies  the  want  of  the 
reports  of  sense,  we  may  collect  the  excellency  of  the  under- 
standing then,  by  the  glorious  remainders  of  it  now,  and  guess 
at  the  stateliness  of  the  building  by  the  magnificence  of  its 
ruins.  All  those  arts,  rarities,  and  inventions,  which  vulgar 
minds  gaze  at,  the  ingenious  pursue,  and  all  admire,  are  but  the 
relics  of  an  intellect  defaced  with  sin  and  time.  We  admire  it 
now  only  as  ar^uaries  do  a  piece  of  old  coin,  for  the  stamp  it 
once  bore,  and  not  fo*r  those  vanishing  lineaments  and  disappearing 
draughts  that  remain  upon  it  at  present.  And  certainly  that 
must  needs  have  been  very  glorious,  the  decays  of  which  are 
so  admirable.  He  that  is  comely  wThen  old  and  decrepid,  surely 
was  very  beautiful  when  he  was  young.  An  Aristotle  was  but 
the  rubbish  of  an  Adam,  and  Athens,  but  the  rudiments  of 
paradise. 

2.  The  image  of  God  was  no  less  resplendent  in  that  which 
we  call  man's  practical  understanding;  namely,  that  storehouse 
of  the  soul,  in  which  are  treasured  up  the  rules  of  action,  and 
*Jje  seeds  of  morality.  Where,  we  must  observe,  that  many  who 
deny  all  connate  notions  in  the  speculative  intellect,  do  yet  admit 
them  in  this.  Now  of  this  sort  are  these  maxims,  That  God  is 
to  be  worshipped :  that  parents  are  to  be  honoured :  that  a  man's 
word  is  to  be  kept,  and  the  like;  which,  being  of  universal 
influence,  as  to  the  regulation  of  the  behaviour,  and  converse  of 

Vol.  I. — 4  C 


26 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  II. 


mankind,  are  the  ground  of  all  virtue  and  civility,  and  the  founda- 
tion of  religion. 

It  was  the  privilege  of  Adam  innocent,  to  have  these  notions 
also  firm  and  untainted,  to  carry  his  monitor  in  his  bosom,  his  la-w- 
in his  heart,  and  to  have  such  a  conscience,  as  might  be  its  own 
casuist :  and  certainly  those  actions  must  needs  be  regular,  where 
there  is  an  identity  between  the  rule  and  the  faculty.  His  own 
mind  taught  him  a  due  dependence  upon  God,  and  chalked  out 
to  him  the  just  proportions  and  measures  of  behaviour  to  his 
fellow  creatures.  He  had  no  catechism  but  the  creation,  needed 
no  study  but  reflection,  read  no  book,  but  the  volume  of  the 
world,  and  that  too,  not  for  rules  to  work  by,  but  for  the  objects 
to  work  upon.  Reason  was  his  tutor,  and  first  principles  his 
magna  moralia.  The  decalogue  of  Moses  was  but  a  transcript, 
not  an  original.  All  the  laws  of  nations,  and  wise  decrees  of 
states,  the  statutes  of  Solon,  and  the  twelve  tables,  were  but  a 
paraphrase  upon  this  standing  rectitude  of  nature,  this  fruitful 
principle  of  justice,  that  was  ready  to  run  out,  and  enlarge  itself 
into  suitable  demonstrations,  upon  all  emergent  objects  and  occa- 
sions. Justice  then  was  neither  blind  to  discern,  nor  lame  to 
execute.  It  was  not  subject  to  be  imposed  upon  by  a  deluded 
fancy,  nor  yet  to  be  bribed  by  a  glosing  appetite,  for  an  utile  or 
jucundum  to  turn  the  balance  to  a  false  or  dishonest  sentence.  In 
all  its  directions  of  the  inferior  faculties  it  conveyed  its  suggestions 
with  clearness,  and  enjoined  them  with  power ;  it  had  the  passions 
in  perfect  subjection ;  and,  though  its  command  over  them  was 
but  suasive  and  political,  yet  it  had  the  force  of  absolute  and 
despotical.  It  was  not  then,  as  it  is  now,  where  the  conscience 
has  only  power  to  disapprove,  and  to  protest  against  the  exor- 
bitances of  the  passions ;  and  rather  to  wish,  than  make  them 
otherwise.  The  voice  of  conscience  now  is  low  and  weak,  chas- 
tising the  passions,  as  old  Eli  did  his  lustful  domineering  sons ; 
"  Not  so,  my  sons,  not  so  but  the  voice"  of  conscience  then 
was  not,  This  should,  or  this  ought  to  be  done ;  but,  This  must, 
this  shall  be  done.  It  spoke  like  a  legislator;  the  thing  spoken 
was  a  law :  and  the  manner  of  speaking  it  a  new  obligation.  1p 
short,  there  was  as  great  a  disparity  between  the  practical  dictates 
of  the  understanding  then,  and  now,  as  there  is  between  empire 
and  advice,  counsel  and  command,  between  a  companion  and  ^ 
governor. 

And  thus  much  for  the  image  of  God,  as  it  shone  in  man's 
understanding. 

II.  Let  us  in  the  next  place  take  a  view  of  it,  as  it  was 
stamped  upon  the  will.  It  is  much  disputed  by  divines  con- 
cerning the  power  of  man's  will  to  good  and  evil  in  the  state  of 
innocence ;  and  upon  very  nice  and  dangerous  precipices  stand 
their  determinations  on  either  side.    Some  hold  that  God  invested 


MAX  CREATED  EN   THE  IMAGE  OF  GOD. 


27 


him  with  a  power  to  stand,  so  that  in  the  strength  of  that  power 
received,  he  might,  without  the  auxiliaries  of  any  farther  influence, 
have  detennined  his  will  to  a  full  choice  of  good.  Others 
hold,  that  notwithstanding  this  power,  yet  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  exert  it  in  any  good  action,  without  a  superadded  assistance 
of  grace  actually  determining  that  power  to  the  certain  production 
of  such  an  act.  So  that,  whereas  some  distinguish  between 
sufficient  and  effectual  grace ;  they  order  the  matter  so,  as  to 
acknowledge  none  sufficient,  but  what  is  indeed  effectual,  and 
actually  productive  of  a  good  action.  I  shall  not  presume  to 
interpose  dogmatically  in  a  controversy,  which  I  look  never  to  see 
decided.  But  concerning  the  latter  of  these  opinions,  I  shall  only 
give  these  two  remarks. 

1.  That  it  seems  contrary  to  the  common  and  natural  conceptions 
of  all  mankind,  who  acknowledge  themselves  able  and  sufficient 
to  do  many  things  which  actually  they  never  do. 

2.  That  to  assert,  that  God  looked  upon  Adam's  fall  as  a  sin, 
and  punished  it  as  such,  when,  without  any  antecedent  sin  of 
his,  he  withdrew  that  actual  grace  from  him,  upon  the  withdrawing 
of  which,  it  was  impossible  for  him  not  to  fall,  seems  a  thing  that 
highly  reproaches  the  essential  equity  and  goodness  of  the  divine 
nature. 

Wherefore,  doubtless  the  will  of  man  in  the  state  of  innocence, 
had  an  entire  freedom,  a  perfect  equipendency  and  indifference 
to  either  part  of  the  contradiction,  to  stand,  or  not  to  stand  ;  to 
accept,  or  not  accept  the  temptation.  I  will  grant  the  will  of 
man  now  to  be  as  much  a  slave  as  any  one  will  have  it,  and  be 
only  free  to  sin  ;  that  is,  instead  of  a  liberty,  to  have  only  a 
licentiousness  ;  yet  certainly  this  is  not  nature,  but  chance.  We 
were  not  born  crooked  ;  we  learned  these  windings  and  turnings 
of  the  serpent :  and  therefore  it  cannot  but  be  a  blasphemous 
piece  of  ingratitude  to  ascribe  them  to  God  ;  and  to  make  the 
plague  of  our  nature  the  condition  of  our  creation. 

The  will  was  then  dyg&Ie  and  pliant  to  all  the  motions  of 
right  reason  ;  it  met  the  dictates  of  a  clarified  understanding  half 
way.  And  the  active  informations  of  the  intellect,  filling  the 
passive  reception  of  the  will,  like  form  closing  with  matter,  grew 
actuate  into  a  third  and  distinct  perfection  of  practice  ;  the  under- 
standing and  will  never  disagreed  ;  for  the  proposals  of  the  one 
never  thwarted  the  inclinations  of  the  other.  Yet,  neither  did  the 
will  servilely  attend  upon  the  understanding,  but  as  a  favourite 
does  upon  his  prince,  where  the  service  is  privileoe  and  prefer- 
ment ;  or  as  Solomon's  servants  waited  upon  him,  it  admired  its 
wisdom,  and  heard  its  prudent  dictates  and  counsels,  both  the 
direction  and  the  reward  of  its  obedience.  It  is  indeed  the 
nature  of  this  faculty  to  follow  a  superior  euide,  to  be  drawn 
by  the  intellect ;  but  then  it  was  drawn  as  a  triumphant  chariot, 
which  at  the  same  time  both  follows  and  triumphs :  while  it 


28 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  It 


obeyed  this,  it  commanded  the  other  faculties.  t  It  was  subordinate, 
not  enslaved  to  the  understanding  :  not  as  a  servant  to  a  master, 
but  as  a  queen  to  her  king,  who  both  acknowledges  a  subjection, 
and  yet  retains  a  majesty. 

Pass  we  now  downward  from  man's  intellect  and  will, 

III.  To  the  passions,  which  have  their  residence  and  situation 
chiefly  in  the  sensitive  appetite.  For  we  must  know,  that 
inasmuch  as  man  is  a  compound,  and  mixture  of  flesh  as  well  as 
spirit,  the  soul,  during  its  abode  in  the  body,  does  all  things  by 
the  mediation  of  these  passions  and  inferior  affections.  And 
here  the  opinion  of  the  Stoics  was  famous  and  singular,  who 
looked  upon  all  these  as  sinful  defects  and  irregularities,  as  so 
many  deviations  from  right  reason,  making  passion  to  be  only 
another  word  for  perturbation.  Sorrow  in  their  esteem  was  a 
sin  scarce  to  be  expiated  by  another  ;  to  pity,  was  a  fault ;  to 
rejoice,  an  extravagance  ;  and  the  apostle's  advice,  "  to  be  angry 
and  sin  not,"  was  a  contradiction  in  their  philosophy.  But  in 
this,  they  were  constantly  outvoted  by  other  sects  of  philosophers, 
neither  for  fame  nor  number  less  than  themselves :  so  that  all 
arguments  brought  against  them  from  divinity  would  come  in  by 
way  of  overplus  to  their  confutation.  To  us  let  this  be  sufficient, 
that  our  Saviour  Christ,  who  took  upon  him  all  our  natural 
infirmities,  but  none  of  our  sinful,  has  been  seen  to  weep,  to  be 
sorrowful,  to  pity,  and  to  be  angry :  which  shows  that  there 
might  be  gall  in  a  dove,  passion  without  sin,  fire  without  smoke, 
and  motion  without  disturbance.  For  it  is  not  bare  agitation, 
but  the  sediment  at  the  bottom,  that  troubles  and  defiles  the 
water :  and  when  we  see  it  windy  and  dust^,  the  wind  does  not 
(as  we  use  to  say)  make,  but  only  raise  a  dust. 

Now,  though  the  schools  reduce  all  the  passions  to  these  two 
heads,  the  concupiscible,  and  the  irascible  appetite  ;  yet,  I  shall 
not  tie  myself  to  an  exact  prosecution  of  them  under  this  division ; 
but  at  this  time,  leaving  both  their  terms  and  their  method  to 
themselves,  consider  only  the  principal  and  most  noted  passions, 
from  whence  we  may  take  an  estimate  of  the  rest. 

And  first,  for  the  grand  leading  affection  of  all,  which  is  love. 
This  is  the  great  instrument  and  engine  of  nature,  the  bond 
and  cement  of  society,  the  spring  and  spirit  of  the  universe.  Love 
is  such  an  affection,  as  cannot  so  properly  be  said  to  be  in  the 
soul,  as  the  soul  to  be  in  that.  It  is  the  whole  man  wrapped  up 
into  one  desire  ;  all  the  powers,  vigour,  and  faculties  of  the  soul 
abridged  into  one  inclination.  And  it  is  of  that  active,  restless 
nature,  that  it  must  of  necessity  exert  itself ;  and,  like  the  fire, 
to  which  it  is  so  often  compared,  it  is  not  a  free  agent,  to  choose 
whether  it  will  heat  or  no,  but  it  streams  forth  by  natural  results 
and  unavoidable  emanations.  So  that  it  will  fasten  upon  any 
inferior,  unsuitable  object,  rather  than  none  at  all.     The  soul 


MAN  CREATED  IN   THE  IMAGE  OF  GOD. 


29 


may  sooner  leave  off  to  subsist,  than  to  love ;  and,  like  the  vine, 
it  withers  and  dies,  if  it  has  nothing  to  embrace.  Now  this 
affection,  in  the  state  of  innocence,  was  happily  pitched  upon  its 
right  object;  it  flamed  up  in  direct  fervours  of  devotion  to  God, 
and  in  collateral  emissions  of  charity  to  its  neighbour.  It  was 
not  then  only  another  and  more  cleanly  name  for  lust.  It  had 
none  of  those  impure  heats,  that  both  represent  and  deserve  hell. 
It  was  a  vestal  and  a  virgin  fire,  and  differed  as  much  from  that, 
which  usually  passes  by  this  name  now-a-days,  as  the  vital  heat 
from  the  burning  of  a  fever. 

Then,  for  the  contrary  passion  of  hatred.  This,  we  know,  is 
the  passion  of  defiance,  and  there  is  a  kind  of  aversation  and 
hostility  included  in  its  very  essence  and  being.  But  then  (if  there 
could  have  been  hatred  in  the  world,  when  there  was  scarce  any 
thing  odious)  it  would  have  acted  within  the  compass  of  its  proper 
object.  Like  aloes,  bitter  indeed,  but  wholesome.  There  would 
have  been  no  rancour,  no  hatred  of  our  brother:  an  innocent 
nature  could  hate  nothing  that  was  innocent.  In  a  word,  so  great 
is  the  commutation,  that  the  soul  then  hated  only  that  which  now 
only  it  loves,  that  is,  sin. 

And  if  we  may  bring  anger  under  this  head,  as  being,  according 
to  some,  a  transient  hatred,  or  at  least  very  like  it :  this  also,  as 
unruly  as  now  it  is,  yet  then  it  vented  itself  by  the  measures  of 
reason.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  the  transports  of  malice,  or 
the  violences  of  revenge :  no  rendering  evil  for  evil,  when  evil  was 
truly  a  nonentity,  and  no  where  to  be  found.  Anger  then  was  like 
the  sword  of  justice,  keen,  but  innocent  and  righteous :  it  did  not 
act  like  fury,  then  call  itself  zeal.  It  always  espoused  God's 
honour,  and  never  kindled  upon  any  thing,  but  in  order  to  a 
sacrifice.  It  sparkled  like  the  coal  upon  the  altar,  with  the 
fervours  of  piety,  the  heats  of  devotion,  the  sallies  and  vibrations 
of  a  harmless  activity. 

In  the  next  place,  for  the  lightsome  passion  of  joy ;  it  was  not 
that  which  now  often  usurps  this  name ;  that  trivial,  vanishing, 
superficial  thing,  that  only  gilds  the  apprehension,  and  plays  upon 
the  surface  of  the  soul.  It  was  not  the  mere  crackling  of  thorns, 
or  sudden  blaze  of  the  spirits,  the  exultation  of  a  tickled  fancy, 
or  a  pleased  appetite.  Joy  was  then  a  masculine  and  a  severe 
thing ;  the  recreation  of  the  judgment,  the  jubilee  of  reason.  It 
was  the  result  of  a  real  good,  suitably  applied.  It  commenced 
upon  the  solidities  of  truth,  and  the  substance  of  fruition.  It  did 
not  run  out  in  voice  or  indecent  eruptions,  but  filled  the  soul,  as 
God  does  the  universe,  silently  and  without  noise.  It  was  refresh- 
ing, but  composed,  like  the  pleasantness  of  youth  tempered  with 
the  gravity  of  age ;  or  the  mirth  of  a  festival  managed  with  the 
silence  of  contemplation. 

And  on  the  other  side,  for  sorrow;  had  any  loss  or  disaster 
made  but  room  for  grief,  it  would  have  moved  according  to  the 

c  2 


30 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  II. 


severe  allowances  of  prudence,  and  the  proportions  of  the  pro- 
vocation. It  would  not  have  sallied  out  into  complaint  or  loud- 
ness, nor  spread  itself  upon  the  face,  and  writ  sad  stories  upon 
the  forehead.  No  wringing  of  hands,  knocking  the  breast,  or 
wishing  one's  self  unborn ;  all  which  are  but  the  ceremonies 
of  sorrow,  the  pomp  and  ostentation  of  an  effeminate  grief ; 
which  speak  not  so  much  the  greatness  of  the  misery,  as  the 
smallness  of  the  mind.  Tears  may  spoil  the  eyes,  but  not  wTash 
away  the  affliction.  Sighs  may  exhaust  the  man,  but  not  eject 
the  burden.  Sorrow  then  would  have  been  as  silent  as  thought, 
as  severe  as  philosophy.  It  would  have  rested  in  inward  senses, 
tacit  dislikes ;  and  the  whole  scene  of  it  been  transacted  in  sad  and 
silent  reflections. 

Then  again  for  hope.  Though  indeed  the  fulness  and  affluence 
of  man's  enjoyments  in  the  state  of  innocence,  might  seem  to  leave 
no  place  for  hope,  in  respect  of  any  farther  addition,  but  only 
of  the  prorogation  and  future  continuance  of  what  already  he 
possessed :  yet  doubtless  God,  who  made  no  faculty,  but  also 
provided  it  with  a  proper  object,  upon  which  it  might  exercise 
and  lay  out  itself,  even  in  its  greatest  innocence,  did  then  exercise 
man's  hopes  with  the  expectations  of  a  better  paradise,  or  a  more 
intimate  admission  to  himself.  For  it  is  not  imaginable,  that  Adam 
could  fix  upon  such  poor,  thin  enjoyments,  as  riches,  pleasure,  and 
the  gaieties  of  an  animal  life.  Hope,  indeed,  was  always  the 
anchor  of  the  soul,  yet  certainly,  it  was  not  to  catch  or  fasten  upon 
such  mud.  And  if,  as  the  apostle  says,  "  no  man  hopes  for  that 
which  he  sees,"  much  less  could  Adam  then  hope  for  such  things 
as  he  saw  through. 

And,  lastly,  for  the  affection  of  fear.  It  was  then  the  instrument 
of  caution,  not  of  anxiety ;  a  guard,  and  not  a  torment  to  the 
breast  that  had  it.  It  is  now  indeed  an  unhappiness,  the  disease 
of  the  soul :  it  flies  from  a  shadow,  and  makes  more  dangers 
than  it  avoids  ;  it  weakens  the  judgment,  and  betrays  the  succours 
of  reason :  so  hard  is  it  to  tremble,  and  not  to  err,  and  to  hit  the 
mark  with  a  shaking  hand.  Then  it  fixed  upon  him  who  is  only 
to  be  feared,  God  ;  and  yet,  with  a  filial  fear,  w7hich  at  the  same 
time  both  fears  and  loves.  It  was  awe  without  amazement,  dread 
without  distraction.  There  was  then  a  beauty  even  in  this  very 
paleness.  It  was  the  colour  of  devotion,  giving  a  lustre  to 
reverence,  and  a  gloss  to  humility. 

Thus  did  the  passions  then  act  without  any  of  their  present 
jars,  combats,  or  repugnances ;  all  moving  with  the  beauty  of 
uniformity,  and  the  stillness  of  composure.  Like  a  well  governed 
army,  not  for  righting,  but  for  rank  and  order.  I  confess  the 
scripture  does  not  expressly  attribute  these  several  endowments 
to  Adam  in  his  first  estate.  But  all  that  I  have  said,  and  much 
more,  may  be  drawn  out  of  that  short  aphorism,  "  God  made 
man  upright,"  Eccles.  vii.  29.     And  since  the  opposite  weak- 


MAN  CREATED  IN  THE  IMAGE  OF  GOD. 


31 


nesses  now  infest  the  nature  of  man  fallen,  if  we  will  be  true  to 
the  rules  of  contraries,  we  must  conclude,  that  those  perfections 
were  the  lot  of  man  innocent. 

Now  from  this  so  exact  and  regular  composure  of  the  faculties, 
all  moving  in  their  due  place,  each  striking  in  its  proper  time,, 
there  arose,  by  natural  consequence,  the  crowning  perfection  of 
all,  a  good  conscience.  For,  as  in  the  body  when  the  principal 
parts,  as  the  heart  and  liver,  do  their  offices,  and  all  the  inferior, 
smaller  vessels  act  orderly  and  duly,  there  arises  a  sweet  enjoy- 
ment upon  the  whole,  which  we  call  health  :  so  in  the  soul,  when 
the  supreme  faculties  of  the  will  and  understanding  move  regu- 
larly, the  inferior  passions  and  affections  following,  there  arises  a 
serenity  and  complacency  upon  the  whole  soul  infinitely  beyond 
the  greatest  bodily  pleasures,  the  highest  quintessence  and  elixir 
of  worldly  delights.  There  is  in  this  case  a  kind  of  fragrancy 
and  spiritual  perfume  upon  the  conscience,  much  like  what  Isaac 
spoke  of  his  son's  garments,  "  That  the  scent  of  them  was  like 
the  smell  of  a  field  which  the  Lord  had  blessed."  Such  a  fresh- 
ness and  flavour  is  there  upon  the  soul,  when  daily  watered  with 
the  actions  of  a  virtuous  life.  Whatsoever  is  pure,  is  also 
pleasant. 

Having  thus  surveyed  the  image  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man, 
we  are  not  to  omit  now  those  characters  of  majesty  that  God 
imprinted  upon  the  body.  He  drew  some  traces  of  his  image 
upon  this  also,  as  much  as  a  spiritual  substance  could  be  pictured 
upon  a  corporeal.  As  for  the  sect  of  the  Anthropomorphites, 
who  from  hence  ascribe  to  God  the  figure  of  a  man,  eyes,  hands, 
feet,  and  the  like,  they  are  too  ridiculous  to  deserve  a  confutation. 
They  would  seem  to  draw  this  impiety  from  the  letter  of  the 
scripture  sometimes  speaking  of  God  in  this  manner.  Absurdity ! 
as  if  the  mercy  of  scripture  expressions  ought  to  warrant  the 
blasphemy  of  our  opinions  ;  and  not  rather  to  show  us  that  God 
condescends  to  us,  only  to  draw  us  to  himself ;  and  clothes  himself 
in  our  likeness  only  to  win  us  to  his  own.  The  practice  of  the 
papists  is  much  of  the  same  nature,  in  their  absurd  and  impious 
picturing  of  God  Almighty  :  but  the  wonder  in  them  is  the  less, 
since  the  image  of  a  deity  may  be  a  proper  object  for  that,  which 
is  but  the  image  of  a  religion.  But  to  the  purpose  :  Adam  was 
then  no  less  glorious  in  his  externals  ;  he  had  a  beautiful  body,  as 
well  as  an  immortal  soul.  The  whole  compound  was  like  a  well 
built  temple,  stately  without,  and  sacred  within.  The  elements 
were  at  perfect  union  and  agreement  in  his  body ;  and  their 
contrary  qualities  served  not  for  the  dissolution  of  the  compound, 
but  the  variety  of  the  composure.  Galen,  who  had  no  more 
divinity  than  what  his  physic  taught  him,  barely  upon  the  consider- 
ation of  this  so  exact  frame  of  the  body,  challenges  any  one,  upon 
a  hundred  years'  study,  to  find  how  any  the  least  fibre,  or  most 
minute  particle,  might  be  more  commodiously  placed,  either  for  the 


32 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  n. 


advantage  of  use  or  comeliness.  His  stature  erect,  and  tending 
upwards  to  his  centre ;  his  countenance  majestic  and  comely,  with 
the  lustre  of  a  native  beauty,  that  scorned  the  poor  assistance  of 
art  or  the  attempts  of  imitation  ;  his  body  of  so  much  quickness 
and  agility,  that  it  did  not  only  contain  but  also  represent  the 
soul :  for  we  might  well  suppose  that  where  God  did  deposit  so 
rich  a  jewel,  he  would  suitably  adorn  the  case.  It  was  a  fit 
work-house  for  sprightly,  vivid  faculties  to  exercise  and  exert 
themselves  in.  A  fit  tabernacle  for  an  immortal  soul,  not  only 
to  dwell  in,  but  to  contemplate  upon  ;  where  it  might  see  the 
world  without  travel,  it  being  a  lesser  scheme  of  the  creation, 
nature  contracted,  a  little  cosmography  or  map  of  the  universe. 
Neither  was  the  body  then  subject  to  distempers,  to  die  by  piece- 
meal, and  languish  under  coughs,  catarrhs,  or  consumptions. 
Adam  knew  no  disease  so  long  as  temperance  from  the  forbidden 
fruit  secured  them.  Nature  was  his  physician,  and  innocence  and 
abstinence  would  have  kept  him  healthful  to  immortality. 

Now  the  use  of  this  point  might  be  various,  but  at  present  it 
shall  be  only  this,,  to  remind  us  of  the  irreparable  loss  that  wTe 
sustained  in  our  first  parents,  to  show  us  of  howr  fair  a  portion 
Adam  disinherited  his  whole  posterity  by  one  single  prevarication, 
Take  the  picture  of  a  man  in  the  greenness  and  vivacity  of  his 
youth,  and  in  the  latter  date  and  declensions  of  his  drooping 
years,  and  you  will  scarce  know  it  to  belong  to  the  same  person ; 
there  would  be  more  art  to  discern,  than  at  first  to  draw  it.  The 
same  and  greater  is  the  difference  between  man  innocent  and 
fallen.  He  is,  as  it  were,  a  new  kind  or  species  ;  the  plague  of 
sin  has  even  altered  his  nature  and  eaten  into  his  very  essentials. 
The  image  of  God  is  wiped  out,  the  creatures  have  shaken  off  his 
yoke,  renounced  his  sovereignty,  and  revolted  from  his  dominion. 
Distempers  and  diseases  have  shattered  the  excellent  frame  of 
his  body ;  and,  by  a  new  dispensation,  "  immortality  is  swallowed 
up  of  mortality."  The  same  disaster  and  decay  also  has  invaded 
his  spirituals ;  the  passions  rebel,  every  faculty  would  usurp  and 
rule,  and  there  are  so  many  governors,  that  there  can  be  no 
government.  The  light  within  us  is  become  darkness,  and  the 
understanding,  that  should  be  eyes  to  the  blind  faculty  of  the  will, 
is  blind  itself,  and  so  brings  all  the  inconveniences  that  attend  a 
blind  follower  under  the  conduct  of  a  blind  guide.  He  that 
would  have  a  clear  ocular  demonstration  of  this,  let  him  reflect 
upon  that  numerous  litter  of  strange,  senseless,  absurd  opinions, 
that  crawl  about  the  world,  to  the  disgrace  of  reason,  and  the 
unanswerable  reproach  of  a  broken  intellect. 

The  two  great  perfections,  that  both  adorn  and  exercise  man's 
understanding,  are  philosophy  and  religion  :  for  the  first  of  these, 
take  it  even  among  the  professors  of  it  where  it  most  flourished, 
and  we  shall  find  the  very  first  notions  of  common  sense  de- 
bauched by  them.    For  there  have  been  such  as  have  asserted, 


MAN  CREATED  IN  THE  IMAGE  OF  GOD. 


33 


c  That  there  is  no  such  thing  in  the  world  as  motion :  that  con- 
tradictions may  be  true.'  There  has  not  been  wanting  one,  that 
has  denied  snow  to  be  white.  Such  a  stupidity -or  wantonness  had 
seized  upon  the  most  raised  wits,  that  it  might  be  doubted  whether 
the  philosophers  or  the  owls  of  Athens  were  the  quicker  sighted. 
But  then  for  religion ;  what  prodigious,  monstrous,  misshapen 
births  has  the  reason  of  fallen  man  produced !  It  is  now  almost 
six  thousand  years  that  far  the  greatest  part  of  the  world  has  had 
no  other  religion  but  idolatry :  and  idolatry  certainly  is  the  first-born 
of  folly,  the  great  and  leading  paradox,  nay,  the  very  abridgment 
and  sum  total  of  all  absurdities.  For  is  it  not  strange  that  a 
rational  man  should  wrorship  an  ox,  nay,  the  image  of  an  ox  ? 
That  he  should  fawn  upon  his  dog  ?  Bow  himself  before  a  cat  ? 
Adore  leeks  and  garlic,  and  shed  penitential  tears  at  the  smell  of  a 
deified  onion  ?  Yet  so  did  the  Egyptians,  once  the  famed  masters 
of  all  arts  and  learning.  And  to  go  a  little  farther,  we  have  yet  a 
stranger  instance  in  Isa.  xliv.  14,  "  A  man  hews  him  down  a  tree 
in  the  wood,  and  a  part  of  it  he  burns,"  in  ver.  16,  and  in  ver.  17, 
"  with  the  residue  thereof  he  maketh  a  god."  With  one  part  he 
furnishes  his  chimney,  with  the  other  his  chapel.  A  strange  thing 
that  the  fire  must  first  consume  this  part,  and  then  burn  incense  to 
that.  As  if  there  was  more  divinity  in  one  end  of  the  stick  than  in 
the  other ;  or,  as  if  it  could  be  graved  and  painted  omnipotent,  or 
the  nails  and  the  hammer  could  give  it  an  apotheosis.  Briefly,  so 
great  is  the  change,  so  deplorable  the  degradation  of  our  nature, 
that,  whereas  before  we  bore  the  image  of  God,  we  now  retain  only 
the  image  of  men. 

■  In  the  last  place,  we  learn  from  hence  the  excellency  of  Christian 
religion,  in  that  it  is  the  great  and  only  means  that  God  has  sancti- 
fied and  designed  to  repair  the  breaches  of  humanity,  to  set  fallen 
man  upon  his  legs  again,  to  clarify  his  reason,  to  rectify  his  will, 
and  to  compose  and  regulate  his  affections.  Tlie  whole  business 
of  our  redemption  is,  in  short,  only  to  rub  over  the  defaced  copy 
of  the  creation,  to  reprint  God's  image  upon  the  soul,  and,  as  it 
were,  to  set  forth  nature  in  a  second  and  a  fairer  edition. 

The  recovery  of  which  lost  image,  as  it  is  God's  pleasure  to 
command,  and  our  duty  to  endeavour,  so  it  is  in  his  power  only  to 
effect. 

To  whom  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise, 
might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


Vol.  I.— 5 


TWO  SERMONS: 


The  first  preached  at  St.  Mary's,  Oxford,  J uly  24,  1659,  being  the  time  of  the 
Assizes ;  as  also  of  the  fears  and  groans  of  the  nation,  in  the  threatened  and 
expected  ruin  of  the  laws,  ministry,  and  universities. — The  second  preached 
before  the  Honourable  Society  of  Lincoln's  Inn. 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY. 

TO  THE 

RIGHT  WORSHIPFUL  EDWARD  ATKINS, 
serjeant  at  law,  and  formerly  one  of  the  justices  of  the  common  pleas. 

Honoured  Sir, 

Though  at  first  it  was  free,  and  in  my  choice,  whether  or  no  I 
should  publish  these  discourses,  yet  the  publication  being  once 
resolved,  the  dedication  was  not  so  indifferent ;  the  nature  of  the  sub- 
ject, no  less  than  the  obligations  of  the  author,  styling  them,  in  a 
peculiar  manner,  yours  :  for  since  their  drift  is  to  carry  the  most  en- 
dangered and  endangering  truth  above  the  safest,  when  sinful,  interest ; 
as  a  practice  upon  grounds  of  reason  the  most  generous,  and  of  Chris- 
tianity the  most  religious ;  to  whom  rather  should  this  assertion  repair 
as  to  a  patron,  than  to  him  whom  it  has  for  an  instance  ?  Who,  in  a 
case  of  eminent  competition,  chose  duty  before  interest ;  and  when 
the  judge  grew  inconsistent  with  the  justice,  preferred  rather  to  be 
constant  to  sure  principles,  than  to  an  unconstant  government :  and 
to  retreat  to  an  innocent  and  honourable  privacy,  than  to  sit  and  act 
iniquity  by  a  law ;  and  make  your  age  and  conscience  (the  one  vene- 
rable, the  other  sacred)  drudges  to  the  tyranny  of  fanatic,  perjured 
usurpers. 

The  next  attempt  of  this  discourse  is  a  defence  of  the  ministry,  and 
that  at  such  a  time  when  none  owned  them  upon  the  bench,  for  then 
you  had  quitted  it ;  but  when,  on  the  contrary,  we  lived  to  hear  one 
in  the  very  face  of  the  university,  as  it  were'  in  defiance  of  us  and  our 
profession,  openly  in  his  charge  defend  the  quakers  and  fanatics, 
persons  not  fit  to  be  named  in  such  courts,  but  in  an  indictment. 
But,  Sir,  in  the  instructions  I  here  presumed  to  give  to  others,  con- 
cerning what  they  should  do,  you  may  take  a  narrative  of  what  you 
have  done:  what  respected  their  actions  as  a  rule  or  admonition, 
applied  to  yours  is  only  a  rehearsal,  whose  zeal  in  asserting  the 
ministerial  cause  is  so  generally  known,  so  gratefully  acknowledged, 
that  I  dare  affirm,  that  in  what  I  deliver,  you  read  the  words  indeed 
of  one,  but  the  thanks  of  all.  Which  affectionate  concernment  of 
34 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY. 


35 


yours  for  them,  seems  to  argue  a  spiritual  sense,  and  experimental 
taste  of  their  works,  and  that  you  have  reaped  as  much  from  their 
labours,  as  others  have  done  from  their  lands  :  for  to  me  it  seemed 
always  strange,  and  next  to  impossible,  that  a  man,  converted  by  the 
word  preached,  should  ever  hate  and  persecute  a  preacher.  And 
since  you  have  several  times  in  discourse  declared  yourself  for  that 
government  in  the  Church,  which  is  founded  upon  scripture,  reason, 
apostolical  practice,  and  antiquity,  and  we  are  sure  the  only  one  that 
can  consist  with  the  present  government  of  state,  I  thought  the  latter 
discourse  also  might  fitly  address  itself  to  you  ;  in  the  which  you 
may  read  your  judgment,  as  in  the  other  your  practice. 

And  now,  since  it  has  pleased  Providence  at  length  to  turn  our 
captivity,  and  answer  persecuted  patience  with  the  unexpected 
returns  of  settlement ;  to  remove  our  rulers,  and  restore  our  ruler ; 
and  not  only  to  make  our  "  exactors  righteousness,"  but,  what  is 
better,  to  give  us  righteousness  instead  of  exaction,  and  hopes  of 
religion  to  a  Church  worried  with  reformation  ;  I  believe,  upon  a  due 
and  impartial  reflection  on  what  is  past,  you  now  find  no  cause  to 
repent,  that  you  never  dipped  your  hands  in  the  bloody  high  courts 
of  justice,  properly  so  called  only  by  antiphrasis  ;  nor  ever  prosti- 
tuted the  scarlet  robe  to  those  employments,  in  which  you  must  have 
worn  the  colour  of  your  sin  in  the  badge  of  your  office  :  but  notwith- 
standing all  the  enticements  of  a  prosperous  villany,  abhorred  the 
purchase,  when  the  price  was  blood.  So  that  now,  being  privileged 
by  a  happy  unconcernment  in  those  legal  murders,  you  may  take  a 
sweeter  relish  of  your  own  innocence,  by  beholding  the  misery  of 
others'  guilt,  who  being  guilty  before  God,  and  infamous  before  men, 
obnoxious  to  both,  begin  to  find  the  first-fruits  of  their  sin  in  the 
universal  scorn  of  all,  their  apparent  danger  and  unlikely  remedy: 
which  beginnings  being  at  length  consummated  by  the  hand  of  jus- 
tice, the  cry  of  blood  and  sacrilege  will  cease,  men's  doubts  will  be 
satisfied,  and  Providence  absolved. 

And  thus,  Sir,  having  presumed  to  honour  my  first  essays  in 
divinity  by  prefixing  to  them  a  name  to  wdiich  divines  are  so  much 
obliged;  I  should  here,  in  the  close  of  this  address,  contribute  a  wish 
at  least  to  your  happiness:  but  since  we  desire  it  not  yet  in  another 
world,  and  your  enjoyments  in  this  (according  to  the  standard  of  a 
Christian  desire)  are  so  complete,  that  they  require  no  addition,  I 
shall  turn  my  washes  into  gratulations ;  and  congratulating  their 
fulness,  only  wish  their  continuance  :  praying,  that  you  may  still 
possess  what  you  possess  ;  and  do  what  you  do  ;  that  is,  reflect  upon 
a  clear,  unblotted,  acquitting  conscience,  and  feed  upon  the  ineffable 
comforts  of  the  memorial  of  a  conquered  temptation,  without  the 
danger  of  returning  to  the  trial.  And  this,  Sir,  I  account  the  greatest 
felicity  that  you  can  enjoy,  and  therefore  the  greatest  that  he  can 
desire,  who  is 

Yours  in  all  observance, 

Robert  South. 

Christ  Church,  May  25,  1660. 


36 


SERMON  III. 
interest  deposed,  and  truth  restored. 

Matthew  x.  33. 

But  whosoever  shall  deny  me  before  men,  him  will  I  also  deny 
before  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 

As  the  great  comprehensive  gospel  duty  is  the  denial  of  self, 
so  the  grand  gospel  sin  that  confronts  it  is  the  denial  of  Christ. 
These  two  are  both  the  commanding  and  the  dividing  principles 
of  all  our  actions :  for  whosoever  acts  in  opposition  to  one,  does 
it  always  in  behalf  of  the  other.  None  ever  opposed  Christ,  but 
It  was  to  gratify  self ;  none  ever  renounced  the  interest  of  self, 
but  from  a  prevailing  love  to  the  interest  of  Christ.  The  subject 
I  have  here  pitched  upon  may  seem  improper  in  these  times, 
and  in  this  place,  where  the  number  of  professors  and  of  men 
is  the  same ;  where  the  cause  and  interest  of  Christ  has  been  so 
cried  up ;  and  Christ's  personal  reign  and  kingdom  so  called  for 
and  expected.  But  since  it  has  been  still  preached  up,  but  acted 
down ;  and  dealt  with,  as  the  eagle  in  the  fable  did  with  the 
oyster,  carrying  it  up  on  high,  that  by  letting  it  fall  he  might  dash 
it  in  pieces :  I  say,  since  Christ  must  reign,  but  his  truths  be  made 
to  serve ;  I  suppose  it  is  but  reason  to  distinguish  between  profes- 
sion and  pretence,  and  to  conclude,  that  men's  present  crying, 
"  Hail,  king,"  and  bending  the  knee  to  Christ,  are  only  in  order  to 
his  future  crucifixion. 

For  the  discovery  of  the  sense  of  the  words,  I  shall  inquire 
into  their  occasion.  From  the  very  beginning  of  the  chapter  we 
have  Christ  consulting  the  propagation  of  the  gospel ;  and  in 
order  to  it  (being  the  only  way  that  he  knew  to  effect  it)  sending 
forth  a  ministry ;  and  giving  them  a  commission,  together  with 
instructions  for  the  execution  of  it.  He  would  have  them  fully 
acquainted  with  the  nature  and  extent  of  their  office ;  and  so  he 
joins  commission  with  instruction ;  by  one  he  conveys  power,  by 
the  other  knowledge.  Supposing,  I  conceive,  that  upon  such  an 
undertaking,  the  more  learned  his  ministers  were,  they  would 
prove  never  the  less  faithful.*  And  thus  having  fitted  them, 
and  stripped  them  of  all  manner  of  defence,  v.  9,  "  he  sends  them 

*In  the  parliament  1653,  it  being  put  to  the  vote,  whether  they  should  support 
and  encourage  a  godly  and  learned  ministry,  the  latter  word  was  rejected,  and  the 
vote  passed  for  a.  godly  and  faithful  ministry. 


INTEREST  DEPOSED,  AXD  TRUTH  RESTORED. 


37 


forth  amongst  wolves  ;"  a  hard  expedition,  you  will  say,  to  go 
amongst  wolves ;  but  yet  much  harder  to  convert  them  into 
sheep  :  and  no  less  hard  even  to  discern  some  of  them,  possibly 
being  under  sheep's  clothing ;  and  so  by  the  advantage  of  that 
dress,  sooner  felt  than  discovered :  probably  also  such  as  had 
both  the  properties  of  wolves,  that  is,  they  could  whine  and 
howl,  as  well  as  bite  and  devour.  But,  that  they  might  not  go 
altogether  naked  among  their  enemies,  the  only  armour  that 
Christ  allows  them  is  prudence  and  innocence :  "  Be  ye  wise  as 
serpents,  but  harmless  as  doves,"  v.  16.  Weapons  not  at  all 
offensive,  yet  most  suitable  to  their  warfare,  whose  greatest 
encounters  were  to  be  exhortations,  and  whose  only  conquest, 
escape.  Innocence  is  the  best  caution,  and  we  may  unite  the 
expression,  to  be  "  wise  as  a  serpent"  is  to  be  "  harmless  as  a 
dove."  Innocence  is  like  polished  armour;  it  adorns,  and  it 
defends.  In  sum,  he  tells  them,  that  the  opposition  they  should 
meet  with,  was  the  greatest  imaginable,  from  ver.  16  to  26.  But 
in  the  ensuing  verses  he  promises  them  an  equal  proportion  of 
assistance  ;  and,  as  if  it  were  not  an  argument  of  force  enough  to 
outweigh  the  forementioned  discouragements,  he  casts  into  the 
balance  the  promise  of  a  reward  to  such  as  should  execute,  and  of 
punishment  to  such  as  should  neglect,  their  commission :  the  reward 
in  the  former  verse,  "  Whosoever  shall  confess  me  before  men," 
&c,  the  punishment  in  this,  14  But  whosoever  shall  deny,"  &C.  As 
if  by  way  of  pre-occupation,  he  should  have  said,  Weil :  here  you 
see  your  commission ;  this  is  your  duty,  these  are  your  discourage- 
ments :  never  seek  for  shifts  and  evasions  from  worldly  afflictions ; 
this  is  your  reward,  if  you  perform  it ;  this  is  your  doom,  if  you 
decline  it. 

As  for  the  explication  of  the  words,  they  are  clear  and  easy ;  and 
their  originals  in  the  Greek  are  of  single  sigriirieation,  without  any 
ambiguity  :  and  therefore  I  shall  not  trouble  you,  by  proposing:  how 
they  run  in  this  or  that  edition  ;  or  straining  for  an  interpretation 
where  there  is  no  difficulty,  or  distinction  where  there  is  no  differ- 
ence. The  only  exposition  that  I  shall  give  of  them  will  be  to 
compare  them  to  other  parallel  scriptures,  and  peculiarly  to  that  in 
Mark  viii.  3S,  "  Whosoever  therefore  shall  be  ashamed  bf  me  and 
of  my  words  in  this  adulterous  and  sinful  Generation,  of  him  also 
shall  the  Son  of  man  be  ashamed,  when  he  cometh  in  the  glory  of 
his  Father  with  the  holy  angels/ '  These  words  are  a  comment 
upon  my  text. 

I.  What  is  here  in  the  text  called  a  "denying  of  Christ,"  is 
there  termed  a  11  being  ashamed  of  him  :"  that  is,  in  those  words 
the  cause  is  expressed,  and  here  the  effect ;  for  therefore  we  deny  a 
Sling,  because  we  are  ashamed  of  it.  First,  Peter  is  ashamed  of 
Christ,  then  he  denies  him. 

•2.  What  is  here  termed  a  denying  of  "  Christ,"  is  there  called 
a  being  ashamed  of  "  Christ  and  his  words ;"  Christ's  truths  are 

D 


38 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  III. 


his  second  self.  And  he  that  offers  a  contempt  to  a  king's  letters 
or  edicts,  virtually  affronts  the  king ;  it  strikes  his  words,  but  it 
rebounds  upon  his  person. 

3.  What  is  here  said,  "  before  men,"  is  there  phrased,  "  in  this 
adulterous  and  sinful  generation."  These  words  import  the  hin- 
derance  of  the  duty  enjoined ;  which  therefore  is  here  purposely 
enforced  with  a  non  obstante  to  all  opposition.  The  term  "  adul- 
terous," I  conceive,  may  chiefly  relate  to  the  Jews,  who  being 
nationally  espoused  to  God  by  covenant,  every  sin  of  theirs  was,  in 
a  peculiar  manner,  "  spiritual  adultery." 

4.  What  is  here  said,  "  I  will  deny  him  before  my  Father,"  is 
there  expressed,  "I  will  be  ashamed  of  him  before  my  Father 
and  his  holy  angels ;"  that  is,  when  he  shall  come  to  judgment, 
when  revenging  justice  shall  come  in  pomp,  attended  with  the 
glorious  retinue  of  all  the  host  of  heaven.  In  short,  the  sen- 
tence pronounced  declares  the  judgment,  the  solemnity  of  it  the 
terror. 

From  the  words  we  may  deduce  these  observations: 

I.  We  shall  find  strong  motives  and  temptations  from  men,  to 
draw  us  to  a  denial  of  Christ. 

II.  No  terrors  or  solicitations  from  men,  though  never  so  great, 
can  warrant  or  excuse  such  a  denial. 

III.  To  deny  Christ's  words  is  to  deny  Christ. 

But  since  these  observations  are  rather  implied  than  expressed  in 
the  words,  I  shall  waive  them,  and  instead  of  deducing  a  doctrine 
distinct  from  the  words,  prosecute  the  words  themselves  under  this 
doctrinal  paraphrase : 

Whosoever  shall  deny,  disown,  or  be  ashamed  of  either  the 
person  or  truths  of  Jesus  Christ,  for  any  fear  or  favour  of  man, 
shall  with  shame  be  disowned,  and  eternally  rejected  by  him 
at  the  dreadful  judgment  of  the  great  day. 
The  discussion  of  this  shall  lie  in  these  things. 

I.  To  show  how  many  ways  Christ  and  his  truths  may  be 
denied;  and  what  is  the  denial  here  chiefly  intended. 

II.  To  show  what  are  the  causes  that  induce  men  to  a  denial  of 
Christ  and  his  truths. 

III.  To  show  how  far  a  man  may  consult  his  safety  in  time  of 
persecution,  without  denying  Christ. 

IV.  To  show  what  is  imported  in  Christ's  denying  us  before  his 
Father  in  heaven. 

V.  To  apply  all  to  the  present  occasion. 

But  before  I  enter  upon  these,  I  must  briefly  premise  this  ; 
that  though  the  text  and  the  doctrine  run  peremptory  and  abso- 
lute, "  Whosoever  denies  Christ  shall  assuredly  be  denied  by 
him  ;"  yet  still  there  is  a  tacit  condition  in  the  words  supposed, — 
unless  repentance  intervene.  For  this  and  many  other  scriptures, 
though  as  to  their  formal  terms  they  are  absolute,  yet  as  to  their 
sense  they  are  conditional.     God  in  mercy  has  so  framed  and 


INTEREST  DEPOSED,  AND  TRUTH  RESTORED. 


39 


tempered  his  word,  that  we  have,  for  the  most  part,  a  reserve  of 
mercy  wrapped  up  in  a  curse.  And  the  very  first  judgment  that 
was  pronounced  upon  fallen  man,  was  with  the  allay  of  a  promise. 
Wheresoever  we  find  a  curse  to  the  guilt}*  expressed,  in  the  same 
words  mercy  to  the  penitent  is  still  understood.  This  premised, 
I  come  now  to  discuss  the  first  tiling,  viz. 

L  How  many  ways  Christ  and  Ids  truths  may  be  denied;  and 
ichat  is  the  denial  here  chiefly  intended.  Here  first  in  general  I 
assert,  that  we  may  deny  him  in  all  those  acts  that  are  capable  of 
being  morally  good  or  evil ;  those  are  the  proper  scene  in  which 
we  act  our  confessions  or  denials  of  him.  Accordingly,  therefore, 
all  ways  of  denying  Christ  I  shall  comprise  under  these  three. 

1.  We  may  deny  him  and  his  truths  by  an  erroneous,  heretical 
judgment.  I  know  it  is  doubted  whether  a  bare  error  in  judg- 
ment can  condemn  ;  but  since  truths  absolutely  necessary  to 
salvation  are  so  clearly  revealed,  that  we  cannot  err  in  them, 
unless  we  be  notoriously  wanting  to  ourselves  ;  herein  the  fault 
of  the  judgment  is  resolved  into  a  precedent  default  in  the  will  ; 
and  so  the  case  is  put  out  of  doubt.  And  here  it  may  be  replied, 
Are  not  truths  of  absolute  and  fundamental  necessity  very 
disputable  ;  as  the  deity  of  Christ,  the  Trinity  of  persons  ?  If 
they  are  not  in  themselves  disputable,  why  are  they  so  much 
disputed  ?  Indeed,  I  believe,  if  we  trace  these  disputes  to  their 
original  cause,  we  shall  find,  that  they  never  sprung  from  a 
reluctancy  in  reason  to  embrace  them.  For  this  reason  itself 
dictates,  as  most  rational,  to  assent  to  any  thing,  though  seem- 
ingly contrary  to  reason,  if  it  is  revealed  by  God,  and  we  are 
certain  of  the  revelation.  These  two  supposed,  these  disputes 
must  needs  arise  only  from  curiosity  and  singularity- ;  and  these  are 
faults  of  a  diseased  will.  But  some  will  farther  demand,  in 
behalf  of  these  men,  whether  such  as  assent  to  every  word  in 
scripture  (for  so  will  those  that  deny  the  natural  deity*  of  Christ 
and  the  Spirit)  can  be  yet  said  in  doctrinals  to  deny  Christ  ?  To 
this  I  answer,  Since  words  abstracted  from  their  proper  sense 
and  signification  lose  the  nature  of  words,  and  are  only  equivo- 
cally so  called  ;  inasmuch  as  the  persons  we  speak  of  take  them 
thus,  and  derive  the  letter  from  Christ,  but  the  signification  from 
themselves,  they  cannot  be  said  properly  to  assent  so  much  as  to 
the  words  of  the  scripture.  And  so  their  case  also  is  clear.  But 
yet  more  fully  to  state  the  matter,  how  far  a  denial  of  Christ  in 
belief  and  judgment  is  damnable  :  we  will  propose  the  question, 
Whether  those  who  hold  the  fundamentals  of  faith  may  deny 
Christ  damnably,  in  respect  of  those  superstructures  and  conse- 
quences that  arise  from  them  ?  I  answer  in  brief,  By  funda- 
mental truths  are  understood,  (1.)  Either  such,  without  the 
belief  of  which  we  cannot  be  saved :  or,  (2.)  Such,  the  belief  of 


40 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  III. 


which  is  sufficient  to  save  :  if  the  question  be  proposed  of  fun- 
damentals in  this  latter  sense,  it  contains  its  own  answer  ;  for 
where  a  man  believes  those  truths,  the  belief  of  which  is  sufficient 
to  save,  there  the  disbelief  or  denial  of  their  consequences  cannot 
damn.  But  what,  and  how  many  these  fundamentals  are,  it  will 
then  be  agreed  on,  when  all  sects,  opinions,  and  persuasions,  do 
unite  and  consent.  2dly,  If  we  speak  of  fundamentals  in  the 
former  sense,  as  they  are  only  truths,  without  which  we  cannot 
be  saved  :  it  is  manifest  that  we  may  believe  them,  and  yet  be 
damned  for  denying  their  consequences  :  for  that  which  is  only  a 
condition,  without  which  we  cannot  be  saved,  is  not  therefore  a 
cause  sufficient  to  save :  much  more  is  required  to  the  latter 
than  to  the  former.  I  conclude,  therefore,  that  to  deny  Christ 
in  our  judgment,  will  condemn,  and  this  concerns  the  learned  : 
Christ  demands  the  homage  of  your  understanding ;  he  will  have 
your  reason  bend  to  him,  you  must  put  your  heads  under  his 
feet.  And  we  know,  that  heretofore,  he  who  had  the  leprosy  in 
this  part  was  to  be  pronounced  unclean.  A  poisoned  reason,  an 
infected  judgment,  is  Christ's  greatest  enemy.  And  an  error  in 
the  judgment  is  like  an  imposthume  in  the  head,  which  is  always 
noisome,  and  frequently  mortal. 

2.  We  may  deny  Christ  verbally,  and  by  oral  expressions. 
Now  our  words  are  the  interpreters  of  our  hearts,  the  transcripts 
of  the  judgment,  with  some  farther  addition  of  good  or  evil.  He 
that  interprets,  usually  enlarges.  What  our  judgment  whispers 
in  secret,  these  proclaim  upon  the  housetop.  To  deny  Christ  in 
the  former  imports  enmity  ;  but  in  these  open  defiance.  Christ's 
passion  is  renewed  in  both  ;  he  that  misjudges  of  him  condemns 
him  ;  but  he  that  blasphemes  him  spits  in  his  face.  Thus  the 
Jews  and  the  pharisees  denied  Christ :  "  We  know  that  this  man 
is  a  sinner,"  John  ix.  24  ;  "  and  a  deceiver,"  Matt,  xxvii.  63  ; 
"  and  he  casts  out  devils  by  the  prince  of  devils,"  Matt.  xii.  24. 
And  thus  Christ  is  daily  denied,  in  many  blasphemies  printed 
and  divulged,  and  many  horrid  opinions  vented  against  the  truth. 
•The  schools  dispute  whether  in  morals  the  external  action  super- 
adds any  thing  of  good  or  evil  to  the  internal  elicit  act  of  the 
will ;  but  certainly  the  enmity  of  our  judgments  is  wrought  up 
to  a  high  pitch,  before  it  rages  in  an  open  denial.  And  it  is  a 
sign  that  it  is  grown  too  big  for  the  heart,  when  it  seeks  for  vent 
in  our  words.  Blasphemy  uttered  is  error  heightened  with 
impudence  ;  it  is  sin  scorning  a  concealment,  not  only  committed, 
but  defended.  He  that  denies  Christ  in  his  judgment,  sins  ;  but 
he  that  speaks  his  denial,  vouches  and  owns  his  sin  ;  and  so,  by 
publishing  it,  does  what  in  him  lies,  to  make  it  universal,  and  by 
writing  it,  to  establish  it  eternal.  There  is  another  way  of 
denying  Christ  with  our  mouths,  which  is  negative ;  that  is, 
when  we  do  not  acknowledge  and  confess  him :  but  of  this  I 


INTEREST  DEPOSED,  AND  TRUTH  RESTORED. 


41 


shall  have  occasion  to  treat  under  the  discussion  of  the  third 
general  head. 

3.  We  may  deny  Christ  in  our  actions-  and  practice ;  and  these 
speak  much  louder  than  our  tongues.  To  have  an  orthodox 
belief,  and  a  true  profession,  concurring  with  a  bad  life,  is  only 
to  deny  Christ  with  a  greater  solemnity.  Belief  and  profession 
will  speak  thee  a  Christian  but  very  faintly,  when  thy  conversa- 
tion proclaims  thee  an  infidel.  Many,  while  they  have  preached 
Christ  in  their  sermons,  have  read  a  lecture  of  atheism  in  their 
practice.  We  have  many  here  who  speak  of  godliness,  mortifi- 
cation, and  self-denial ;  but,  if  these  are  so,  what  means  the 
bleating  of  the  sheep,  and  the  lowing  of  the  oxen ;  the  noise  of 
their  ordinary  sins,  and  the  cry  of  their  great  ones  ?  If  godly, 
why  do  they  wallow  and  steep  in  all  the  carnalities  of  the  world, 
under  pretence  of  Christian  liberty  ?  Why  do  they  make  religion 
ridiculous  by  pretending  to  prophecy,  and  when  their  prophecies 
prove  delusions,  why  do  they  blaspheme  ?*  If  such  are  self- 
deniers,  what  means  the  griping,  the  prejudice,  the  covetousness, 
and  the  pluralities  preached  against  and  retained,  and  the  arbitrary 
government  of  many?  When  such  men  preach  of  self-denial 
and  humility,  I  cannot  but  think  of  Seneca,  who  praised  poverty, 
and  that  very  safely,  in  the  midst  of  his  riches  and  gardens ; 
and  even  exhorted  the  world  to  throw  away  their  gold,  perhaps 
(as  one  well  conjectures),  that  he  might  gather  it  up  ;  so  these 
desire  men  to  be  humble,  that  they  may  domineer  without 
opposition.  But  it  is  an  easy  matter  to  commend  patience, 
when  there  is  no  danger  of  any  trial,  to  extol  humility  in 
the  midst  of  honours,  to  begin  a  fast  after  dinner.]  But,  oh,  how 
Christ  will  deal  with  such  persons,  when  he  shall  draw  forth  all 
their  actions  bare  and  stripped  from  this  deceiving  veil  of  their 
heavenly  speeches !  He  will  then  say,  it  was  not  your  sad 
countenance,  nor  your  hypocritical  groaning,  by  which  you  did 
either  confess  or  honour  me  :  but  your  worldliness,  your  luxury, 
your  sinister  partial  dealing ;  these  have  denied  me,  these  have 
wounded  me,  these  have  gone  to  my  heart ;  these  have  caused 
the  weak  to  stumble,  and  the  profane  to  blaspheme ;  these  have 
offended  the  one,  and  hardened  the  other.  You  have  indeed 
spoke  me  fair,  you  have  saluted  me  with  your  lips,  but  even  then 
you  betrayed  me.  Depart  from  me,  therefore,  you  professors  of 
holiness,  but  you  workers  of  iniquity. 

And  thus  having  shown  the  three  ways  by  which  Christ  may 

*  A  noted  Independent  divine,  when  Oliver  Cromwell  was  sick,  of  which  sickness 
he  died,  declared  that  God  had  revealed  to  him  that  he  should  recover,  and  live  thirty 
years  longer,  for  that  God  had  raised  him  up  for  a  work  which  could  not  be  done  in 
less  time.  But  Oliver's  death  being  published  two  days  after,  the  said  divine  publicly 
in  prayer  expostulated  with  God  the  defeat  of  his  prophecy,  in  these  words  :  "  Lord, 
thou  hast  lied  unto  us  ;  yea,  thou  hast  lied  unto  us." 

t  Very  credibly  reported  to  have  been  done  in  an  Independent  congregation  at 
Oxon. 

Vol.  I.— 6  d  2 


42 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  III. 


be  denied,  it  may  now  be  demanded,  Which  is  the  denial  here 
intended  in  the  words  ? 

Answer  (1.)  I  conceive  if  the  words  are  taken  as  they  were 
particularly  and  personally  directed  to  the  apostles,  upon  the 
occasion  of  their  mission  to  preach  the  gospel,  so  the  denial  of 
him  was  the  not  acknowledgment  of  the  deity  or  godhead  of 
Christ ;  and  the  reason  to  prove,  that  this  was  then  principally 
intended  is  this  ;  because  this  was  the  truth  in  those  days  chiefly 
opposed,  and  most  disbelieved  ;  as  appears,  because  Christ  and 
the  apostles  did  most  earnestly  inculcate  the  belief  of  this,  and 
accepted  men  upon  the  bare  acknowledgment  of  this,  and  baptism 
was  administered  to  such  as  did  but  profess  this,  Acts  viii.  37, 
38.  And  indeed,  as  this  one  aphorism,  "Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son 
of  God,"  is  virtually  and  eminently  the  whole  gospel ;  so,  to 
confess  or  deny  it,  is  virtually  to  embrace  or  reject  the  whole 
round  and  series  of  gospel  truths.  For  he  that  acknowledges 
Christ  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  by  the  same  does  consequentially 
acknowledge  that  he  is  to  be  believed  and  obeyed,  in  whatsoever 
he  does  enjoin  and  deliver  to  the  sons  of  men  ;  and,  therefore, 
that  we  are  to  repent  and  believe,  and  rest  upon  him  for  salvation, 
and  to  deny  ouselves ;  and  within  the  compass  of  this  is  included 
whatsoever  is  called  gospel. 

As  for  the  manner  of  our  denying  the  deity  of  Christ  here 
prohibited,  I  conceive,  it  was  by  words  and  oral  expressions 
verbally  to  deny  and  disacknowledge  it.  This  I  ground  upon  these 
reasons  : — 

1.  Because  it  was  such  a  denial  as  was  "  before  men,"  and 
therefore  consisted  in  open  profession  ;  for  a  denial  in  judgment 
and  practice,  as  such,  is  not  always  before  men. 

2.  Because  it  was  such  a  denial  or  confession  of  him  as  would 
appear  in  preaching ;  but  this  is  managed  in  words  and  verbal 
profession. 

But  now,  (2.)  If  we  take  the  words  as  they  are  a  general  pre- 
cept equally  relating  to  all  times,  and  to  all  persons,  though 
delivered  only  upon  a  particular  occasion  to  the  apostles  (as  I 
suppose  they  are  to  be  understood),  so  I  think  they  comprehend  a" 
the  three  ways  mentioned  of  confessing  or  denying  Christ ;  but 
principally  in  respect  of  practice;  and  that,  1.  Because  by  this 
he  is  most  honoured  or  dishonoured.  .2.  Because  without  this 
the  other  two  cannot  save.  3.  Because  those  who  are  ready 
enough  to  confess  him  both  in  judgment  and  profession  are 
for  the  most  part  very  prone  to  deny  him  shamefully  in  their 
doings. 

Pass  we  now  to  a  second  thing,  viz.,  to  show, 

II.  What  are  the  causes  inducing  men  to  deny  Christ  in  his 
truths.    I  shall  propose  three. 

1.  The  seeming  supposed  absurdity  of  many  truths :  upon  this 


INTEREST  DEPOSED,  AND  TRUTH  RESTORED.  43 

foundation  heresy  always  builds.  The  heathens  derided  the 
Christians,  that  still  they  required  and  pressed  belief;  and  well 
they  might,  say  they,  since  the  articles  of  their  religion  are  so 
absurd,  that  upon  principles  of  science  they  can  never  win  assent. 
It  is  easy  to  draw  it  forth  and  demonstrate,  how  upon  this  score 
the  chief  heretics,  that  now  are  said  to  trouble  the  church,  do 
oppose  and  deny  the  most  important  truths  in  divinity.  As, 
first,  hear  the  denier  of  the  deity  and  satisfaction  of  Christ. 
What !  says  he,  can  the  same  person  be  God  and  man  ?  the 
creature  and  the  Creator  ?  Can  we  ascribe  such  attributes  to 
the  same  thing,  whereof  one  implies  a  negation  and  a  contradiction 
of  the  other  ?  Can  he  be  also  finite  and  infinite,  when  to  be 
finite  is  not  to  be  infinite,  and  to  be  infinite  not  to  be  finite  ? 
And  when  we  distinguish  between  the  person  and  the  nature, 
was  not  that  distinction  an  invention  of  the  schools,  savouring 
rather  of  metaphysics  than  divinity.  If  we  say  that  he  must 
have  been  God  because  he  was  to  mediate  between  us  and  God, 
by  the  same  reason,  they  will  reply,  we  should  need  a  mediator 
between  us  and  Christ,  who  is  equally  God,  equally  offended. 
Then  for  his  satisfaction  they  will  demand,  to  whom  this  satis- 
faction is  paid  ?  If  to  God,  then  God  pays  a  price  to  himself ; 
and  what  is  it  else  to  require  and  need  no  satisfaction,  than  for 
one  to  satisfy  himself?  Next  comes  in  the  denier  of  the  decrees 
and  free  grace  of  God.  What !  says  he,  shall  we  exhort,  admonish, 
and  entreat  the  saints  to  beware  of  falling  away  finally,  and  at 
the  same  time  assert  that  it  is  impossible  for  them  so  to  fall? 
What !  shall  we  erect  two  contradictory  wills  in  God,  or  place  two 
contradictories  in  the  same  will  ?  and  make  the  will  of  his  purpose 
and  intention  run  counter  to  the  will  of  his  approbation  ?  Hear 
another  concerning  the  scripture  and  justification.  What!  says  the 
Romanist,  rely  in  matters  of  faith  upon  a  private  spirit  ?  How  do 
you  know  this  is  the  sense  of  such  a  scripture  ?  Why,  by  the 
Spirit.  But  how  will  you  try  that  spirit  to  be  of  God  ?  Why, 
by  the  scripture ;  this  he  explodes  as  a  circle,  and  so  derides  it. 
Then  for  justification.  How  are  you  justified  by  an  imputed 
righteousness  ?  Is  it  yours  before  it  is  imputed,  or  not  ?  If  not,  as 
we  must  say,  is  this  to  be  justified  to  have  that  accounted  yours, 
that  is  not  yours  ?  But  again,  did  you  ever  hear  of  any  man  made 
rich  or  wise  by  imputation  ?  Why  then  righteous  or  just  ?  Now 
these  seeming  paradoxes  attending  gospel  truths,  cause  men  of 
weak,  prejudiced  intellectuals  to  deny  them,  and  in  them,  Christ ; 
being  ashamed  to  own  faith  so  much,  as  they  think,  to  the 
disparagement  of  their  reason. 

2.  The  second  thing  causing  men  to  deny  the  truths  of  Christ, 
is  their  unprofitableness.  And  no  wonder  if  here  men  forsake 
the  truth,  and  assert  interest.  To  be  pious  is  the  way  to  be 
poor.  Truth  still  gives  its  followers  its  own  badge  and  livery,  a 
despised  nakedness.    It  is  hard  to  maintain  the  truth,  but  much 


44 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  III. 


harder  to  be  maintained  by  it ;  could  it  ever  yet  feed,  clothe,  or 
defend  its  assertors  ?  Did  ever  any  man  quench  his  thirst  or 
satisfy  his  hunger  with  a  notion  ?  Did  ever  any  one  live  upon 
propositions?  The  testimony  of  Brutus  concerning  virtue,  is  the 
apprehension  of  most  concerning  truth  ;  that  it  is  a  name,  but  lives 
and  estates  are  things,  and  therefore  not  to  be  thrown  away  upon 
words.  That  we  are  neither  to  worship  or  cringe  to  any  thing 
under  the  Deity,  is  a  truth  too  strict  for  a  Naaman ;  he  can  be  con- 
tent to  worship  the  true  God,  but  then  it  must  be  in  the  house  of 
Rimmon ;  the  reason  was  implied  in  his  condition,  he  was  captain 
of  the  host,  and  therefore  he  thought  it  reason  good  to  bow  to 
Rimmon,  rather  than  endanger  his  place  ;  better  bow  than  break. 
Indeed  sometimes  Providence  casts  things  so,  that  truth  and  interest 
lie  the  same  way  ;  and,  when  it  is  wrapped  up  in  this  covering, 
men  can  be  content  to  follow  it,  to  press  hard  after  it,  but  it  is,  as 
we  pursue  some  beasts,  only  for  their  skins  ;  take  off  the  covering, 
and  though  men  obtain  the  truth,  they  would  lament  the  loss  of 
that ;  as  Jacob  wept  and  mourned  over  the  torn  coat  when  Joseph 
wTas  alive.  It  is  incredible  to  consider  how  interest  outweighs 
truth.  If  a  thing  in  itself  be  doubtful,  let  it  make  for  interest,  and 
it  shall  be  raised  at  least  into  probable  ;  and  if  a  truth  be  certain, 
and  thwart  interest,  it  will  quickly  fetch  it  down  to  but  a  pro- 
bability ;  nay,  if  it  does  not  carry  with  it  an  impregnable  evi- 
dence, it  will  go  near  to  debase  it  to  a  downright  falsity.  How 
much  interest  casts  the  balance  in  cases  dubious,  I  could  give 
sundry  instances ;  let  one  suffice,  and  that  concerning  the  unlaw- 
fulness of  usury.  Most  of  the  learned  men  in  the  world  succes- 
sively, both  heathen  and  Christian,  do  assert  the  taking  of  use  to 
be  utterly  unlawful ;  yet  the  divines  of  the  reformed  church 
beyond  the  seas,  though  most  severe  and  rigid  in  other  things, 
do  generally  affirm  it  to  be  lawful.  That  the  case  is  doubtful, 
and  may  be  disputed  with  plausible  arguments  on  either  side,  we 
may  well  grant ;  but  what  then  is  the  reason  that  makes  these 
divines  so  unanimously  concur  in  this  opinion?  Indeed  I  shall 
not  affirm  this  to  be  the  reason,  but  it  may  seem  so  to  many  ; 
that  they  receive  their  salaries  by  way  of  pension,  in  present 
ready  money,  and  so  have  no  other  way  to  improve  them ;  so 
that  it  may  be  suspected  that  the  change  of  their  salary  would 
be  the  strongest  argument  to  change  their  opinion.  The  truth  is, 
interest  is  the  grand  wheel  and  spring  that  moves  the  whole 
universe.  Let  Christ  and  truth  say  what  they  will,  if  interest 
will  have  it,  gain  must  be  godliness;  if  enthusiasm  is. in  request, 
learning  must  be  inconsistent  with  grace.  If  pay  grows  short, 
the  university  maintenance  must  be  too  great.  Rather  than 
Pilate  will  be  counted  Csesar's  enemy,  he  will  pronounce  Christ 
innocent  one  hour,  and  condemn  him  the  next.  How  Christ  is 
made  to  truckle  under  the  world,  and  how  his  truths  are  denied 
and  shuffled  with  for  profit  and  pelf,  the  clearest  proof  would  be 


INTEREST  DEPOSED,  AND  TRUTH  RESTORED. 


45 


by  induction  and  example.  But  as  it  is  the  most  clear,  so  here 
it  would  be  the  most  unpleasing ;  wherefore  I  shall  pass  this 
over,  since  the  world  is  now  so  peccant  upon  this  account,  that 
I  am  afraid  instances  would  be  mistaken  for  invectives. 

3.  The  third  cause  inducing  men  to  deny  Christ  in  his  truths, 
is  their  apparent  danger.  To  confess  Christ  is  the  ready  way  to 
be  cast  out  of  the  synagogue.  The  church  is  a  place  of  graves, 
as  well  as  of  worship  and  profession.  To  be  resolute  in  a  good 
cause,  is  to  bring  upon  ourselves  the  punishment  due  to  a  bad. 
Truth  indeed  is  a  possession  of  the  highest  value,  and  therefore 
it  must  needs  expose  the  owner  to  much  danger.  Christ  is 
sometimes  pleased  to  make  the  profession  of  himself  costly,  and 
a  man  cannot  buy  the  truth,  but  he  must  pay  down  his  life  and 
his  dearest  blood  for  it.  Christianity  marks  a  man  out  for 
destruction ;  and  Christ  sometimes  chalks  out  such  a  way  to 
salvation,  as  shall  verify  his  own  saying,  "  He  that  will  save  his 
life  shall  lose  it."  The  first  ages  of  the  church  had  a  more 
abundant  experience  of  this  ;  what  Paul  and  the  rest  planted  by 
their  preaching,  they  watered  with  their  blood.  We  know  their 
usage  was  such  as  Christ  foretold,  he  sent  them  to  wolves,  and 
the  common  course  then  was  Christianos  ad  leones.  For  a  man  to 
give  his  name  to  Christianity  in  those  days,  was  to  list  himself  a 
martyr,  and  to  bid  farewell  not  only  to  the  pleasures  but  also 
to  the  hopes  of  this  life.  Neither  was  it  a  single  death  only  that 
then  attended  this  profession,  but  the  terror  and  sharpness  of  it 
was  redoubled  in  the  manner  and  circumstance.  They  had  per- 
secutors whose  invention  was  as  great  as  their  cruelty.  Wit  and 
malice  conspired  to  find  out  such  tortures,  such  deaths,  and  those 
of  such  incredible  anguish,  that  only  the  manner  of  dying  was 
the  punishment,  death  itself  the  deliverance.  To  be  a  martyr 
signifies  only  to  witness  the  truth  of  Christ,  but  the  witnessing 
of  the  truth  was  then  so  generally  attended  with  this  event,  that 
martyrdom  now  signifies  not  only  to  witness,  but  to  witness  by 
death.  The  word,  besides  its  own  signification,  importing  their 
practice.  And  since  Christians  have  been  freed  from  heathens, 
Christians  themselves  have  turned  persecutors.  Since  Rome 
from  heathen  was  turned  Christian,  it  has  improved  its  persecu- 
tion into  an  inquisition.  Now,  when  Christ  and  truth  are  upon 
these  terms,  that  men  cannot  confess  him,  but  upon  pain  of 
death,  the  reason  of  their  apostasy  and  death  is  clear ;  men  will 
be  wise,  and  leave  truth  and  misery  to  such  as  love  it ;  they  are 
resolved  to  be  cunning,  let  others  run  the  hazard  of  being 
sincere.  If  they  must  be  good  at  so  high  a  rate,  they  know  they 
may  be  safe  at  a  cheaper.  Si  negare  svfficiat,  quis  e?it  nocensL) 
If  to  deny  Christ  will  save  them,  the  truth  shall  never  make 
them  guilty.  Let  Christ  and  his  flock  lie  open,  and  exposed  to 
all  weather  of  persecution,  foxes  will  be  sure  to  have  holes. 
And,  if  it  comes  to  this,  that  they  must  either  renounce  their 


46 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  III. 


religion,  deny  and  blaspheme  Christ,  or  forfeit  their  lives  to  the 
fire  or  the  sword,  is  but  inverting  Job's  wife's  advice,  "  Curse 
God,  and  live." 

III.  We  proceed  now  to  the  third  thing,  which  is  to  show, 
hew  far  a  man  may  consult  his  safety  in  time  of  persecution  without 
denying  Christ. 

This  he  may  do  two  ways. 

1.  By  withdrawing  his  person.  Martyrdom  is  an  heroic  act 
of  faith  :  an  achievement  beyond  an  ordinary  pitch  of  it ;  "to 
you,"  says  the  Spirit,  "  it  is  given  to  suffer,"  Phil.  i.  29.  It  is 
a  peculiar  additional  gift :  it  is  a  distinguishing  excellency  of 
degree,  not  an  essential  consequent  of  its  nature.  "Be  ye  harm- 
less as  doves,"  says  Christ ;  and  it  is  as  natural  to  them  to  take 
flight  upon  danger,  as  to  be  innocent :  let  every  man  thoroughly 
consult  the  temper  of  his  faith,  and  weigh  his  courage  with  his 
fears,  his  weakness,  and  his  resolutions  together,  and  take  the 
measure  of  both,  and  see  which  preponderates  ;  and  if  his  spirit 
faints,  if  his  heart  misgives  and  melts  at  the  very  thoughts  of 
the  fire,  let  him  fly,  and  secure  his  own  soul,  and  Christ's  honour. 
JVon  negat  Christum  fugiendo,  qui  ideb  fugit  ne  neget :  he  does 
not  deny  Christ  by  flying,  who  therefore  flies  that  he  may  not 
deny  him.  Nay,  he  does  not  so  much  decline,  as  rather  change 
his  martyrdom  :  he  flies  from  the  flame,  but  repairs  to  a  desert : 
to  poverty  and  hunger  in  a  wilderness.  Whereas,  if  he  would 
dispense  with  his  conscience,  and  deny  his  Lord,  or  swallow  down 
two  or  three  contradictory  oaths,  he  should  neither  fear  the  one, 
nor  be  forced  to  the  other. 

2.  By  concealing  his  judgment.  A  man  sometimes  is  no 
more  bound  to  speak,  than  to  destroy  himself ;  and  as  nature 
abhors  this,  so  religion  does  not  command  that.  In  the  times  of 
the  primitive  church,  when  the  Christians  dwelt  amongst  hea- 
thens, it  is  reported  of  a  certain  maid,  how  she  came  from  her 
father's  house  to  one  of  the  tribunals  of  the  Gentiles,  and  declared 
herself  a  Christian,  spit  in  the  judge's  face,  and  so  provoked 
him  to  cause  her  to  be  executed.  But  will  any  say,  that  this 
was  to  confess  Christ,  or  die  a  martyr  ?  He  that,  uncalled  for, 
uncompelled,  comes  and  proclaims  a  personal  truth,  for  which  he  is 
surely  to  die,  only  dies  a  confessor  to  his  own  folly,  and  a  sacri- 
fice to  his  own  rashness.  Martyrdom  is  stamped  such  only  by 
God's  command  ;  and  he  that  ventures  upon  it  without  a  call, 
must  endure  it  without  a  reward  :  Christ  will  say,  "  Who  required 
this  at  your  hands  ?"  His  gospel  does  not  dictate  imprudence :  no 
evangelical  precept  justles  out  that  of  a  lawful  self-preservation. 
He,  therefore,  that  thus  throws  himself  upon  the  sword,  runs 
to  heaven  before  he  is  sent  for ;  where  though  perhaps  Christ 
may  in  mercy  receive  the  man,  yet  he  will  be  sure  to  disown 
the  martyr. 


INTEREST  DEPOSED,  AND  TRUTH  RESTORED. 


47 


And  thus  much  concerning  those  lawful  ways  of  securing  our- 
selves in  time  of  persecution :  not  as  if  these  were  always  lawful : 
for  sometimes  a  man  is  bound  to  confess  Christ  openly,  though  he 
dies  for  it ;  and  to  conceal  a  truth  is  to  deny  it.  But  now,  to 
show  when  it  is  our  duty,  and  when  unlawful  to  take  these 
courses,  by  some  general  rule  of  a  perpetual,  never-failing  truth, 
none  ever  would  yet  presume :  for,  as  Aristotle  says,  "  We  are 
not  to  expect  demonstration  in  ethics,  or  politics,  nor  to  build 
certain  rules  upon  the  contingency  of  human  actions  ;"  so,  inas- 
much as  our  flying  from  persecution,  our  confessing  or  concealing 
persecuted  truths,  vary  and  change  their  very  nature,  according 
to  different  circumstances  of  time,  place,  and  persons,  we  cannot 
limit  their  directions  within  any  one  universal  precept.  You  will 
say  then,  How  shall  we  know  when  to  confess,  when  to  conceal 
a  truth?  when  to  wait  for,  when  to  decline  persecution!  In- 
deed, the  only  way  that  I  think  can  be  prescribed  in  this  case, 
is,  to  be  earnest  and  importunate  with  God  in  prayer  for  special 
direction  ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  imagined  that  he  who  is  both 
faithful  and  merciful,  will  leave  a  sincere  soul  in  the  dark  upon 
such  an  occasion.  But  this  I  shall  add,  that  the  ministers  of  God 
are  not  to  evade,  or  take  refuge  in  any  of  these  two  forementioned 
ways.  They  are  public  persons ;  and  good  shepherds  must  then 
chiefly  stand  close  to  the  flock,  when  the  wolf  comes.  For  them 
to  be  silent  in  the  cause  of  Christ,  is  to  renounce  it ;  and  to  fly, 
is  to  desert  it.  As  for  that  place  urged  in  favour  of  the  contrary, 
in  ver.  23,  "  When  they  persecute  you  in  this  city,  flee  into 
another,"  it  proves  nothing;  for  the  precept  was  particular,  and 
concerned  only  the  apostles ;  and  that,  but  for  that  time  in  which 
they  were  then  sent  to  the  Jews,  at  which  time  Christ  kept 
them  as  a  reserve  for  the  future :  for  when  after  his  death  they 
were  indifferently  sent  both  to  Jews  and  Gentiles,  we  find  not 
this  clause  in  their  commission,  but  they  were  to  sign  the  truths 
they  preached  with  their  blood;  as  we  know  they  actually  did. 
And  moreover,  when  Christ  bids  them,  being  "  persecuted  in 
one  city,  fly  into  another,"  it  was  not,  as  Grotius  acutely  ob- 
serves, "  that  they  might  lie  hid,  or  be  secure  in  that  city,  but 
that  there  they  might  preach  the  gospel :"  so  that  their  flight 
here  was  not  to  secure  their  persons,  but  to  continue  their  busi- 
ness. I  conclude,  therefore,  that  faithful  ministers  are  to  stand 
and  endure  the  brunt.  A  common  soldier  may  fly  when  it  is 
the  duty  of  him  that  holds  the  standard  to  die  upon  the  place. 
And  we  have  abundant  encouragement  so  to  do :  Christ  has 
seconded  and  sweetened  his  command  with  his  promise :  yea,  the 
thing  itself  is  not  only  our  duty,  but  our  glory.  And  he  who 
has  done  this  work,  has  in  the  very  work  partly  received  his 
wages.  And,  were  it  put  to  my  choice,  I  think  I  should  choose 
rather,  with  spitting  and  scorn,  to  be  tumbled  into  the  dust  in 
blood,  bearing  witness  to  any  known  truth  of  our  dear  Lord, 


48  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  in, 

now  opposed  by  the  enthusiasts  of  the  present  age,  than  by  a 
denial  of  those  truths  through  blood  and  perjury  wade  to  a 
sceptre,  and  lord  it  in  a  throne.  And  we  need  not  doubt,  but 
truth,  however  oppressed,  will  have  some  followers,  and  at  length 
prevail.  A  Christ,  though  crucified,  will  arise :  and  as  it  is  in 
the  Rev.  xi.  3,  "The  witnesses  will  prophesy,  though  it  be  in 
sackcloth." 

IV.  Having  thus  despatched  the  third  thing,  I  proceed  to  the 
fourth,  which  is  to  show,  what  it  is  for  Christ  to  deny  us  before 
his  Father  in  heaven.  Hitherto  we  have  treated  of  men's  carriage 
to  Christ  in  this  world ;  now  we  will  describe  his  carriage  to  them 
in  the  other.  These  words  clearly  relate  to  the  last  judgment ; 
and  they  are  a  summary  description  of  his  proceeding  with  men 
at  that  day. 

And  here  we  will  consider,  1.  The  action  itself,  "  He  will  deny 
them."  2.  The  circumstance  of  the  action,  "  He  will  deny  them 
before  his  Father  and  the  holy  angels." 

1.  Concerning  the  first:  Christ's  denying  us  is  otherwise 
expressed  in  Luke  xiii.  27,  "  I  know  you  not."  To  know,  in 
scripture  language,  is  to  approve ;  and  so,  not  to  know,  is  to 
reject  and  condemn.  Now,  who  knows  how  many  woes  are 
crowded  into  this  one  sentence,  "I  will  deny  him  ?"  It  is,  to  say 
no  more,  a  compendious  expression  of  hell,  an  eternity  of  torments 
comprised  in  a  word :  it  is  condemnation  itself,  and,  what  is  most 
of  all,  it  is  condemnation  from  the  mouth  of  a  Saviour.  Oh,  the 
inexpressible  horror  that  will  seize  upon  a  poor  sinner,  when  he 
stands  arraigned  at  the  bar  of  divine  justice !  When  he  shall 
look  about  and  see  his  accuser,  his  Judge,  the  witnesses,  all  of 
them  his  remorseless  adversaries ;  the  law  impleading,  mercy  and 
the  gospel  upbraiding  him,  the  devil,  his  grand  accuser,  drawing 
his  indictment ;  numbering  his  sins  with  the  greatest  exactness, 
and  aggravating  them  with  the  crudest  bitterness  ;  and  conscience, 
like  a  thousand  witnesses,  attesting  every  article,  flying  in  his 
face,  and  rending  his  very  heart :  and  then  after  all,  Christ,  from 
whom  only  mercy  could  be  expected,  owning  the  accusation.  It 
will  be  hell  enough  to  hear  the  sentence ;  the  very  promulga- 
tion of  the  punishment  will  be  part  of  the  punishment,  and 
anticipate  the  execution.  If  Peter  was  so  abashed  when  Christ 
gave  him  a  look  after  his  denial  ;  if  there  was  so  much  dread  in 
his  looks  when  he  stood  as  prisoner,  how  much  greater  will  it  be 
when  he  sits  as  a  judge !  If  it  was  so  fearful  when  he  looked  his 
denier  into  repentance,  what  will  it  be  when  he  shall  look  him 
into  destruction  ?  Believe  it,  when  we  shall  hear  an  accusation 
from  an  advocate,  our  eternal  doom  from  our  intercessor,  it  will 
convince  us  that  a  denial  of  Christ  is  something  more  than  a 
few  transitory  words :  what  trembling,  what  outcries,  what 
astonishment  will  there  be  upon  the  pronouncing  this  sentence! 


INTEREST  DEPOSED,  AND  TRUTH  RESTORED. 


49 


Every  word  will  come  upon  the  sinner  like  an  arrow  striking 
through  his  reins  ;  like  thunder,  that  is  heard,  and  consumes  at 
the  same  instant.  Yea,  it  will  be  a  denial  with  scorn,  with 
taunting  exprobations ;  and  to  be  miserable  without  commisera- 
tion is  the  height  of  misery.  He  that  falls  below  pity,  can  fall 
no  lower.  Could  I  give  you  a  lively  representation  of  guilt  and 
horror  on  this  hand,  and  paint  out  eternal  wrath  and  decipher 
eternal  vengeance  on  the  other,  then  might  I  show  you  the  con- 
dition of  a  sinner  hearing  himself  denied  by  Christ :  and  for 
those  whom  Christ  has  denied,  it  will  be  in  vain  to  appeal  to 
the  Father,  unless  we  can  imagine  that  those  whom  mercy  has 
condemned,  justice  will  absolve. 

2.  For  the  circumstance  :  "  He  will  deny  us  before  his  Father 
and  the  holy  angels."  As  much  as  God  is  more  glorious  than 
man,  so  much  is  it  more  glorious  to  be  confessed  before  him,  than 
before  men  ;  and  so  much  glory  as  there  is  in  being  confessed,  so 
much  dishonour  there  is  in  being  denied.  If  there  could  be  any 
room  for  comfort  after  the  sentence  of  damnation,  it  would  be 
this,  to  be  executed  in  secret,  to  perish  unobserved :  as  it  is 
some  allay  to  the  infamy  of  him  who  died  ignominiously  to  be 
buried  privately.  But  when  a  man's  folly  must  be  spread  open 
before  the  angels,  and  all  his  baseness  ripped  up  before  those  pure 
spirits,  this  will  be  a  double  hell :  to  be  thrust  into  utter  dark- 
ness, only  to  be  punished  by  it  without  the  benefit  of  being 
concealed.  When  Christ  shall  compare  himself,  who  was  denied, 
and  the  thing  for  which  he  was  denied,  together,  and  parallel  his 
merits  with  a  lust,  and  lay  eternity  in  the  balance  w:th  a  trifle, 
then  the  folly  of  the  sinner's  choice  shall  be  the  greatest  sting  of 
his  destruction.  For  a  man  shall  not  have  the  advantage  of  his 
former  ignorances  and  error  to  approve  his  sin.  Things  that 
appeared  amiable  by  the  light  of  this  world,  wrill  appear  of  a 
different  odious  hue  in  the  clear  discoveries  of  the  next  :  as  that 
which  appears  to  be  of  this  colour  by  a  dim  candle,  will  be  found 
to  be  of  another,  looked  upon  in  the  day.  So  when  Christ 
shall  have  cleared  up  men's  apprehensions  about  the  value  of 
things ;  he  will  propose  that  worthy  prize  for  which  he  was 
denied  :  he  will  hold  it  up  to  open  view,  and  call  upon  men  and 
angels  :  Behold,  look,  here  is  the  thing,  here  is  that  piece  of  dirt, 
that  windy  applause,  that  poor,  transitory  pleasure,  that  contempti- 
ble danger,  for  which  I  was  dishonoured ,  my  truth  disowned, 
and  for  which  life,  eternity,  and  God  himself  was  scorned  and 
trampled  upon  by  this  sinner  :  judge  all  the  world,  whether  what 
he  so  despised  in  the  other  life,  he  deserves  to  enjoy  in  this ' 
How  will  the  condemned  sinner  then  crawl  forth,  and  appear  in 
his  filth  and  shame,  before  that  undefiled  tribunal,  like  a  toad  or 
a  snake  in  a  king's  presence  chamber?  Nothing  so  irksome,  as 
to  have  one's  folly  displayed  before  the  prudent :  one's  impurity 
before  the  pure.    And  all  this,  before  that  company  surrounding 

Vol.  I.— 7  E 


50 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  III. 


him  from  which  he  is  neither  able  to  look  off,  nor  yet  to  look 
upon.  A  disgrace  put  upon  a  man  in  company  is  unsupportable  ; 
it  is  heightened  according  to  the  greatness,  and  multiplied  ac- 
cording to  the  number  of  the  persons  that  hear  it.  And  now, 
as  this  circumstance,  "  before  his  Father,"  fully  speaks  the  shame, 
so  likewise  it  speaks  the  danger  of  Christ's  then  denying  us. 
For  when  the  accusation  is  heard,  and  the  person  stands  con- 
victed, God  is  immediately  lifting  up  his  hand  to  inflict  the 
eternal  blow ;  and  when  Christ  denies  to  exhibit  a  ransom,  to 
step  between  the  stroke  then  coming  and  the  sinner,  it  must 
inevitably  fall  upon  him,  and  sink  his  guilty  soul  into  that  deep 
and  bottomless  gulf  of  endless  perdition.  This  therefore  is  the 
sum  of  Christ's  denying  us  before  his  Father,  viz.  unsupportable 
shame,  unavoidable  destruction. 

V.  I  proceed  now  to  the  uses  which  may  be  drawn  from  the 
truths  delivered.  And, 

1.  Right  honourable,  not  only  the  present  occasion,  but  even 
the  words  themselves  seem  eminently  to  address  an  exhortation 
to  your  honours.  As  for  others  not  to  deny  Christ,  is  openly  to 
profess  him  ;  so  for  you  who  are  invested  with  authority,  not  to 
deny  him,  is  to  defend  him.  Know  therefore  that  Christ  does 
not  only  desire,  but  demand  your  defence,  and  that  in  a  double 
respect. 

(1.)  In  respect  of  his  truth.    (2.)  Of  his  members. 

(1.)  He  requires  that  you  should  defend  and  confess  him  in 
his  truth.  Heresy  is  a  tare  sometimes  not  to  be  pulled  up  but 
by  the  civil  magistrate.  The  words  liberty  of  conscience  are  much 
abused  for  the  defence  of  it,  because  not  well  understood.  Every 
man  may  have  liberty  of  conscience  to  think  and  judge  as  he 
pleases,  but  not  to  vent  what  he  pleases.  The  reason  is,  because 
conscience,  bounding  itself  within  the  thoughts,  is  of  private  con- 
cernment, and  the  cognisance  of  these  belong  only  to  God  :  but 
when  an  opinion  is  published,  it  concerns  all  that  hear  it,  and 
the  public  being  endamaged  by  it,  it  becomes  punishable  by  the 
magistrate  to  whom  the  care  of  the  public  is  entrusted.  But  there 
is  one  truth  that  concerns  both  ministry  and  magistracy,  and  all  ; 
which  is  opposed  by  those  who  affirm,  that  "  none  ought  to  govern 
upon  the  earth,  but  Christ  in  person."  Absurdly  !  as  if  the  power; 
that  are,  destroyed  his  ;  as  if  a  deputy  were  not  consistent  with  a 
king  ;  as  if  there  were  any  opposition  in  subordination.  They 
affirm,  also,  that  the  wicked  have  no  right  to  their  estates  ;  but 
only  the  "  faithful,"  that  is,  themselves ,  ought  to  "  possess  the 
earth."  And  it  is  not  to  be  questioned,  but  when  they  come  to 
explain  this  principle,  by  putting  it  into  execution,  there  will  be 
but  few  that  have  estates  at  present,  but  will  be  either  found  or 
made  wicked.  I  shall  not  be  so  urgent,  to  press  you  to  confess 
Christ,  by  asserting  and  owning  the  truth,  contrary  to  this,  since 


INTEREST  DEPOSED,  AND  TRUTH  RESTORED. 


51 


it  does  not  only  oppose  truth,  but  property;  and  here  to  deny 
Christ,  would  be  to  deny  yourselves,  in  a  sense  which  none  is 
like  to  do. 

(2.)  Christ  requires  you  to  own  and  defend  him  in  his  mem- 
bers ;  and  amongst  these,  the  chief  of  them,  and  such  as  most 
fall  in  your  way,  the  ministers ;  I  say,  that  despised,  abject,  op- 
pressed sort  of  men,  the  ministers,  whom  the  world  would  make 
antichristian,  and  so  deprive  them  of  heaven  ;  and  also  strip 
them  of.  that  poor  remainder  of  their  maintenance,  and  so  allow 
them  no  portion  upon  the  earth.  You  may  now  spare  that  dis- 
tinction of  scandalous  ministers,  when  it  is  even  made  scandalous 
to  be  a  minister.  And  as  for  their  discouragement  in  the  courts 
of  the  law,  I  shall  only  note  this,  that  for  these  many  years  last 
past,  it  has  been  the  constant  observation  of  all,  that  if  a  minister 
had  a  cause  depending  in  the  court,  it  was  ten  to  one  but  it  went 
against  him.  I  cannot  believe  your  law  justles  out  the  gospel ; 
but  if  it  be  thus  used  to  undermine  Christ  in  his  servants,  beware 
that  such  judgments  passed  upon  them  do  not  fetch  down  God's 
judgments  upon  the  land  ;  and  that  for  such  abuse  of  law,  Christ 
does  not  in  anger  deprive  both  you  and  us  of  its  use.  My  lords, 
I  make  no  doubt,  but  you  will  meet  with  many  suits  in  your 
course,  in  which  the  persons  we  speak  of  are  concerned,  as  it  is 
easy  to  prognosticate  from  those  many  worthy  petitions  preferred 
against  them,  for  which  the  well-affected  petitioners*  will  one  day 
receive  but  small  thanks  from  the  court  of  heaven.  But  how- 
ever their  causes  speed  in  your  tribunals,  know  that  Christ  him- 
self will  recognize  them  at  a  greater.  And  then,  what  a  different 
face  will  be  put  upon  things !  When  the  usurping,  devouring 
Nimrods  of  the  world  shall  be  cast  with  scorn  on  the  left  hand  ; 
and  Christ  himself  in  that  great  consistory  shall  deign  to  step 
down  from  his  throne,  and  single  out  a  poor  despised  minister, 
and,  as  it  were,  taking  him  by  the  hand,  present  him  to,  and 
openly  thus  confess  him  before  his  Father :  Father,  here  is  a  poor 
servant  of  mine,  who,  for  doing  his  duty  impartially,  for  keeping 
a  good  conscience,  and  testifying  my  truths  in  a  hypocritical 
pretending  age,  was  wronged,  trod  upon,  stripped  of  all :  Father, 
I  will,  that  there  be  now  a  distinction  made  between  such  as 
have  owned  and  confessed  me  with  the  loss  of  the  world,  and 
those  that  have  denied,  persecuted,  and  insulted  over  me.  It  will 
be  in  vain  then  to  come  and  creep  for  mercy  :  and  say,  Lord, 
when  did  we  insult  over  thee  ?  when  did  we  see  thee  in  our 
courts,  and  despised  or  oppressed  thee  ?  Christ's  reply  will  be 
then  quick  and  sharp  :  Verily,  inasmuch  as  you  did  it  .to  one  of 
these  little,  poor,  despised  ones,  ye  did  it  unto  me.  The 

2.  Use  is  of  information,  to  show  us  the  danger  as  well  as  the 

•  Whensoever  any  petition  was  put  up  to  the  parliament  in  the  year  1653,  for  the 
taking  away  of  tithes,  the  thanks  of  the  house  were  still  returned  to  them,  and  that  by 
the  name  and  eulogy  of  the  well-affected  petitioners. 


52 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  m. 


baseness  of  a  dastardly  spirit,  in  asserting  the  interest  and  truth 
of  Christ.  Since  Christ  has  made  a  Christian  course  a  warfare, 
of  all  men  living  a  coward  is  the  most  unfit  to  make  a  Christian ; 
whose  infamy  is  not  so  great  but  it  is  sometimes  less  than  his 
peril.  A  coward  does  not  always  escape  with  disgrace,  but  some- 
times also  he  loses  his  life  :  wherefore,  let  all  such  know,  as  can 
enlarge  their  consciences  like  hell,  and  call  any  sinful  compliance, 
submission,  and  style  a  cowardly  silence  in  Christ's  cause,  discre- 
tion and  prudence  :  I  say,  let  them  know,  that  Christ  will  one 
day  scorn  them,  and  spit  them,  with  their  policy  and  prudence, 
into  hell ;  and  then  let  them  consult,  how  politic  they  were,  for 
a  temporal  emolument,  to  throw  away  eternity.  The  things 
which  generally  cause  men  to  deny  Christ,  are,  either  the  enjoy- 
ments or  the  miseries  of  this  life :  but,  alas !  at  the  day  of  judg- 
ment all  these  will  expire  ;  and,  as  one  well  observes,  what  are 
we  the  better  for  pleasure,  or  the  worse  for  sorrow,  when  it  is 
past  ?  But  then  sin  and  guilt  will  be  still  fresh,  and  heaven  and 
hell  will  be  then  yet  to  begin.  If  ever  it  was  seasonable  to 
preach  courage  in  the  despised,  abused  cause  of  Christ,  it  is  now, 
when  his  truths  are  reformed  into  nothing,  when  the  hands  and 
hearts  of  his  faithful  ministers  are  weakened,  and  even  broke, 
and  his  worship  extirpated  in  a  mockery,  that  his  honour  may  be 
advanced.  Well,  to  establish  our  hearts  in  duty,  let  us  before- 
hand propose  to  ourselves  the  worst  that  can  happen.  Should 
God  in  his  judgment  suffer  England  to  be  transformed  into  a 
Munster :  should  the  faithful  be  every  where  massacred  :  should 
the  places  of  learning  be  demolished,  and  our  colleges  reduced 
(not  only  as  one*  in  his  zeal  would  have  it)  to  three,  but  to  none ; 
yet  assuredly,  hell  is  worse  than  all  this,  and  is  the  portion  of 
such  as  deny  Christ.  Wherefore,  let  our  discouragements  be 
what  they  will,  loss  of  places,  loss  of  estates,  loss  of  life  and  re- 
lations ;  yet  still  this  sentence  stands  ratified  in  the  decrees  of 
heaven,  "  Cursed  be  that  man,  that  for  any  of  these  shall  desert 
the  truth,  and  deny  his  Lord." 

*  U.  C,  a  colonel  of  the  army,  the  perfidious  cause  of  Penruddock's  death,  and 
some  time  after  high-sheriff  of  Oxfordshire,  openly  and  frequently  affirmed  the  use- 
lessness  of  the  universities,  and  that  three  colleges  were  sufficient  to  answer  the  occa- 
sions of  the  nation,  for  the  breeding  of  men  up  to  learning,  so  far  as  it  was  either 
necessary  or  useful. 


53 


SERMON  IV. 

ECCLESIASTICAL   POLICY  THE  BEST  POLICY  :   OR  RELIGION  THE  BEST 
REASON  OF  STATE. 

[Preached  before  the  Hon.  Society  of  Lincoln's  Inn.] 

1  Kings  xm.  33,  34. 

After  this  thing  Jeroboam  returned  not  from  his  evil  way,  but  made 
again  of  the  lowest  of  the  people  priests  of  the  high  places  : 
whosoever  would,  he  consecrated  him,  and  he  became  one  of  the 
priests  of  tlie  high  places.  And  this  thing  became  sin  unto  the 
house  of  Jeroboam,  even  to  cut  it  off,  ajxd  to  destroy  it  from  off 
the  face  of  the  earth. 

Jeroboam,  from  the  name  of  a  person  become  the  character 
of  impiety,  is  reported  to  posterity  eminent,  or  rather  infamous, 
for  two  things :  usurpation  of  government,  and  innovation  of 
religion.  It  is  confessed,  the  former  is  expressly  said  to  have  been 
from  God  ;  but  since  God  may  order  and  dispose  what  he  does  not 
approve  ;  and  use  the  wickedness  of  men  while  he  forbids  it ;  the 
design  of  the  first  cause  does  not  excuse  the  malignity  of  the 
second :  and  therefore,  the  advancement  and  sceptre  of  Jeroboam 
was  in  that  sense  only  the  work  of  God,  in  which  it  is  said, 
Amos  iii.  6,  "  That  there  is  no  evil  in  the  city  which  the  Lord 
hath  not  done."  But  from  his  attempts  upon  the  civil  power, 
he  proceeds  to  innovate  God's  worship ;  and  from  the  subjection 
of  men's  bodies  and  estates,  to  enslave  their  consciences,  as  know- 
ing that  true  religion  is  no  friend  to  an  unjust  title.  Such  was 
afterwards  the  way  of  Mahomet,  to  the  tyrant  to  join  the  im- 
postor, and  what  he  had  got  by  the  sword  to  confirm  by  the  Al- 
coran :  raising  his  empire  upon  two  pillars,  conquest  and  inspi- 
ration. Jeroboam  being  thus  advanced,  and  thinking  policy  the 
best  piety,  though  indeed  in  nothing  ever  more  befooled  ;  the 
nature  of  sin  being  not  only  to  defile,  but  to  infatuate.  In  the 
twelfth  chapter  and  the  27th  verse,  he  thus  argues,  "  If  this  people 
go  up  to  do  sacrifice  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  at  Jerusalem,  then 
shall  the  heart  of  this  people  turn  again  unto  their  lord,  even 
unto  Rehoboam  king  of  Judah,  and  they  shall  kill  me,  and  go 
again  unto  Rehoboam  king  of  Judah."  As  if  he  should  have 
said  :  The  true  worship  of  God,  and  the  converse  of  those  that 
use  it,  dispose  men  to  a  considerate  lawful  subjection.  And 

e2 


54 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IV. 


therefore  I  must  take  another  course ;  my  practice  must  not  be 
better  than  my  title ;  what  was  won  by  force,  must  be  continued 
by  delusion.  Thus  sin  is  usually  seconded  with  sin :  and  a  man 
seldom  commits  one  sin  to  please,  but  he  commits  another  to  de- 
fend himself :  as  it  is  frequent  for  the  adulterer  to  commit 
murder  to  conceal  the  shame  of  his  adultery.  But  let  us  see 
Jeroboam's  politic  procedure  in  the  next  verse  : — "  Whereupon 
the  king  took  counsel,  and  made  two  calves  of  gold,  and  said 
unto  them,  It  is  too  much  for  you  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  behold 
thy  gods,  O  Israel."  As  if  he  had  made  such  an  edict :  c  I  Jero- 
boam, by  the  advice  of  my  council,  considering  the  great  dis- 
tance of  the  temple,  and  the  great  charges  that  poor  people  are 
put  to  in  going  thither:  as  also  the  intolerable  burden  of  pay- 
ing the  first-fruits  and  tithes  to  the  priests,  have  considered  of  a 
way  that  may  be  more  easy  and  less  burdensome  to  the  people, 
as  also  more  comfortable  to  the  priests  themselves ;  and  therefore 
strictly  enjoin,  that  none  henceforth  presume  to  repair  to  the 
temple  at  Jerusalem,  especially  since  God  is  not  tied  to  any  place 
or  form  of  worship  ;  as  also,  because  the  devotion  of  men  is  apt 
to  be  clogged  by  such  ceremonies :  therefore  both  for  the  ease  of 
the  people,  as  well  as  for  the  advancement  of  religion,  we  require 
and  command,  that  all  henceforth  forbear  going  up  to  Jerusalem.' 
Questionless  these  and  such  other  reasons  the  impostor  used  to 
insinuate  his  devout  idolatry.  And  thus  the  calves  were  set  up, 
to  which  oxen  must  be  sacrificed ;  the  god  and  the  sacrifice  out 
of  the  same  herd.  And  because  Israel  was  not  to  return  to 
Egypt,  Egypt  was  brought  back  to  them :  that  is,  the  Egyptian 
way  of  worship,  the  Apis,  or  Serapis,  which  was  nothing  but 
the  image  of  a  calf  or  ox,  as  is  clear  from  most  historians. 
Thus  Jeroboam  having  procured  his  people  gods,  the  next  thing 
was  to  provide  priests.  Hereupon  to  the  calves  he  adds  a  com- 
mission for  the  approving,  trying,  and  admitting  the  rascality 
and  lowest  of  the  people  to  minister  in  that  service ;  such  as 
kept  cattle,  with  a  little  change  in  their  office,  were  admitted  to 
make  oblations  to  them.  And  doubtless,  besides  the  approbation 
of  these,  there  was  a  commission  also  to  eject  such  of  the  priests 
and  Levites  of  God,  as  being  too  ceremoniously  addicted  to  the 
temple,  would  not  serve  Jeroboam  before  God,  nor  worship  his 
calves  for  their  gold,  nor  approve  those .  two  glittering  sins  for 
any  reason  of  state  whatsoever.  Having  now  perfected  divine 
worship,  and  prepared  both  gods  and  priests:  in  the  next  place, 
that  he  might  the  better  teach  his  false  priests  the  way  of  their 
new  worship,  he  begins  the  service  himself,  and  so  countenances 
by  his  example  what  he  had  enjoined  by  his  command,  in  the 
11th  verse  of  this  chapter:  "And  Jeroboam  stood  by  the  altar 
to  burn  incense."  Burning  of  incense  was  then  the  ministerial 
office  amongst  them,  as  preaching  is  now  amongst  us.  So  that 
to  represent  to  you  the  nature  of  Jeroboam's  action:  it  was,  as 


ECCLESIASTICAL  POLICY  THE  BEST  POLICY. 


55 


if  in  a  Christian  nation  the  chief  governor  should  authorize  and 
encourage  all  the  scum  and  refuse  of  the  people  to  preach,  and 
call  them  to  the  ministry  by  using  to-  preach,*  and  invade  the 
ministerial  function  himself.  But  Jeroboam  rested  not  here,  but 
while  he  was  busy  in  his  work,  and  a  prophet  immediately  sent 
by  God  declares  against  his  idolatry,  he  endeavours  to  seize  upon 
and  commit  him  ;  in  ver.  4,  "He  held  forth  his  hand  from  the 
altar,  and  said,  Lay  hold  of  him."  Thus  we  have  him  com- 
pleting his  sin,  and  by  a  strange  imposition  of  hands  persecuting  the 
true  prophets,  as  well  as  ordaining  false.  But  it  was  a  natural 
transition,  and  no  ways  wTonderful  to  see  him,  who  stood  affronting 
God  with  false  incense  in  the  right  hand,  persecuting  with  the 
left,  and  abetting  the  idolatry  of  one  arm  with  the  violence  of  the 
other.  Now  if  we  lay  all  these  things  together,  and  consider  the 
parts,  rise,  and  degrees  of  his  sin,  we  shall  find,  that  it  was  not 
for  nothing  that  the  Spirit  of  God  so  frequently  and  bitterly  in 
scripture  stigmatizes  this  person  ;  for  it  represents  him,  first 
encroaching  upon  the  civil  government,  thence  changing  that 
of  the  church,  debasing  the  office  that  God  had  made  sacred  ; 
introducing  a  false  way  of  worship,  and  destroying  the  true. 
And  in  this  we  have  a  full  and  fair  description  of  a  foul  thing, 
that  is,  of  a  usurper  and  an  impostor  :  or,  to  use  one  word  more 
comprehensive  than  both,  "  of  Jeroboam  the  son  of  Nebat,  who 
made  Israel  to  sin." 

From  the  story  and  practice  of  Jeroboam  we  might  gather 
these  observations  : 

I.  That  God  sometimes  punishes  a  notorious  sin,  by  suffering 
the  sinner  to  fall  into  a  worse.  Thus  God  punished  the  rebellion 
of  the  Israelites,  by  permitting  them  to  fall  into  idolatry. 

II.  There  is  nothing  so  absurd,  but  may  be  obtruded  upon  the 
vulgar  under  pretence  of  religion.  Certainly,  otherwise  a  golden 
calf  could  never  have  been  made  either  the  object  or  the  means 
of  divine  worship. 

III.  Sin,  especially  that  of  perverting  God's  worship,  as  it 
leaves  a  guilt  upon  the  soul,  so  it  perpetuates  a  blot  upon  the 
name.  Hence  nothing  so  frequent,  as  for  the  Spirit  of  God  to 
express  wicked,  irreligious  kings,  by  comparing  them  to  Ahab 
or  Jeroboam.  It  being  usual  to  make  the  first  and  most  eminent 
in  any  kind,  not  only  the  standard  for  comparison,  but  also  the 
rule  of  expression. 

But  I  shall  insist  only  upon  the  words  of  the  text,  and  what 
shall  be  drawn  from  thence.  There  are  two  things  in  the  words 
that  may  seem  to  require  explication.  1.  What  is  meant  by  the 
high  places.    2.  What,  by  the  consecration  of  the  priests. 

1.  Concerning  the  high  places.  The  use  of  these  in  the  divine 
worship  was  general  and  ancient ;  and  as  Dionvsius  Vossius 
observes  in  his  notes  upon  Moses  Maimonides,  the  first  way  that 

*  Cromwell  (a  lively  copy  of  Jeroboam)  did  so. 


56 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IV. 


was  used,  long  before  temples  were  either  built  or  thought  law- 
ful. The  reason  of  this  seems  to  be,  because  those  places  could 
not  be  thought  to  shut  up  or  confine  the  immensity  of  God,  as 
they  supposed  a  house  did  ;  and  withal  gave  his  worshippers  a 
nearer  approach  to  heaven  by  their  height.  Hence  we  read  that 
the  Samaritans  worshipped  upon  mount  Gerizim,  John  iv.  20  ; 
and  Samuel  went  up  to  the  high  place  to  sacrifice,  1  Sam.  ix.  14  ; 
and  Solomon  sacrificed  at  the  high  place  in  Gibeon,  1  Kings  iii. 
1  ;  yea,  the  temple  itself  was  at  length  built  upon  a  mount  or 
high  place,  2  Chron.  iii.  1.  You  will  say  then,  Why  are  these 
places  condemned  ?  I  answer,  That  the  use  of  them  was  not 
condemned,  as  absolutely  and  always  unlawful  in  itself,  but  only 
after  the  temple  was  built,  and  that  God  had  professed  to  put 
his  name  in  that  place  and  no  other :  therefore,  what  was  lawful 
in  the  practice  of  Samuel  and  Solomon  before  the  temple  was  in 
being,  was  now  detestable  in  Jeroboam,  since  that  was  consti- 
tuted by  God  the  only  place  for  his  worship.  To  bring  this 
consideration  to  the  times  of  Christianity :  because  the  apostles 
and  primitive  Christians  preached  in  houses,  and  had  only  private 
meetings,  in  regard  they  were  under  persecution,  and  had  no 
churches  ;  this  cannot  warrant  the  practice  of  those  now-a-days, 
nor  a  toleration  of  them,  that  prefer  houses  before  churches,  and 
a  conventicle  before  the  congregation. 

2.  For  the  second  thing,  which  is  the  consecration  of  the 
priests  ;  it  seems  to  have  been  correspondent  to  ordination  in  the 
Christian  church.  Idolaters  themselves  were  not  so  far  gone,  as 
to  venture  upon  the  priesthood  without  consecration  and  a  call. 
To  show  all  the  solemnities  of  this,  would  be  tedious,  and  here 
unnecessary  :  the  Hebrew  word  which  we  render  to  consecrate, 
signifies  to  Jill  the  hand,  which  indeed  imports  the  manner  of 
consecration,  which  was  done  by  filling  the  hand  :  for  the  priest 
cut  a  piece  of  the  sacrifice  and  put  it  into  the  hands  of  him  that 
was  to  be  consecrated  ;  by  which  ceremony  he  received  right  to 
sacrifice,  and  so  became  a  priest.  As  our  ordination  in  the 
Christian  church  is  said  to  have  been  heretofore  transacted  by 
the  bishop's  delivering  of  the  bible  into  the  hands  of  him  that 
was  to  be  ordained,  whereby  he  received  power  ministerially 
to  dispense  the  mysteries  contained  in  it,  and  so  was  made  a 
presbyter.    Thus  much  briefly  concerning  consecration. 

There  remains  nothing  else  to  be  explained  in  the  words :  I 
shall  therefore  now  draw  forth  the  sense  of  them  into  these  two 
propositions. 

I.  The  surest  means  to  strengthen,  or  the  readiest  to  ruin  the 
civil  power,  is  either  to  establish  or  destroy  the  worship  of  God 
in  the  right  exercise  of  religion. 

II.  The  next  and  most  effectual  way  to  destroy  religion,  is  to 
embase  the  teachers  and  dispensers  of  it. 

Of  both  these  in  their  order. 


ECCLESIASTICAL  POLICY  THE    BEST  POLICY. 


57 


I.  For  the  prosecution  of  the  former  we  are  to  show, 
1.  The  truth  of  the  assertion,  that  it  is  so.    2.  The  reason  of 
the  assertion,  why  and  whence  it  is  so. 

1.  For  the  truth  of  it:  it  is  abundantly  evinced  from  all  records 
both  of  divine  and  profane  history,  in  which  he  that  runs  may  read 
the  ruin  of  the  state  in  the  destruction  of  the  church ;  and  that  not 
only  portended  by  it,  as  its  sign,  but  also  inferred  from  it,  as  its 
cause. 

2.  For  the  reason  of  the  point ;  it  may  be  drawn, 

(1.)  From  the  judicial  proceeding  of  God,  the  great  King  of 
kings,  and  Supreme  Ruler  of  the  universe :  who  for  his  commands 
is  indeed  careful,  but  for  his  worship  jealous :  and  therefore  in 
states  notoriously  irreligious,  by  a  secret  and  irresistible  power, 
countermands  their  deepest  project,  splits  their  counsels,  and  smites 
their  most  refined  policies  with  frustration  and  a  curse ;  being 
resolved  that  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  shall  fall  down  before  him, 
either  in  his  adoration  or  their  own  confusion. 

(2.)  The  reason  of  the  doctrine  may  be  drawn  from  the  neces- 
sary dependence  of  the  very  principles  of  government  upon 
religion.  And  this  I  shall  pursue  more  fully.  The  great  busi- 
ness of  government  is  to  procure  obedience,  and  keep  off  dis- 
obedience :  the  great  springs  upon  which  those  two  move  are 
rewards  and  punishments,  answering  the  two  ruling  affections  of 
man's  mind,  hope  and  fear.  For  since  there  is  a  natural  opposi- 
tion between  the  judgment  and  the  appetite,  the  former  respecting 
what  is  honesty  the  latter  what  is  pleasing;  which  two  qualifica- 
tions seldom  concur  in  the  same  thing ;  and  since,  withal,  man's 
design  in  every  action  is  delight;  therefore,  to  render  things 
honest  also  practicable,  they  must  be  first  represented  as  desirable, 
which  cannot  be  but  by  proposing  honesty  clothed  with  pleasure ; 
and  since  it  presents  no  pleasure  to  the  sense,  it  must  be  fetched 
from  the  apprehension  of  a  future  reward :  for,  questionless, 
duty  moves  not  so  much  upon  command  as  promise.  Now  there- 
fore, that  which  proposes  the  greatest  and  most  suitable  rewards 
to  obedience,  and  the  greatest  terror  and  punishments  to  dis- 
obedience, doubtless  is  the  most  likely  to  enforce  one  and  prevent 
the  other.  But  it  is  religion  that  does  this,  which  to  happiness 
and  misery  joins  eternity.  And  these,  supposing  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  which  philosophy  indeed  conjectures,  but  only  reli- 
gion proves,  or  (which  is  as  good)  persuades :  I  say  these  two 
things,  eternal  happiness  and  eternal  misery,  meeting  with  a 
persuasion  that  the  soul  is  immortal,  are  without  controversy,  of  all 
others,  the  first  the  most  desirable,  and  the  latter  the  most  horrible 
to  human  apprehension.  Were  it  not  for  these,  civil  government 
were  not  able  to  stand  before  the  prevailing  swing  of  corrupt 
nature,  which  would  know  no  honesty  but  advantage,  no  duty 
but  in  pleasure,  nor  any  law  but  its  own  will.  Were  not  these 
frequently  thundered  into  the  understandings  of  men,  the  magis- 

Vol.  I.— 8 


58 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IV. 


trate  might  enact,  order,  and  proclaim ;  proclamations  might  be 
hung  upon  walls  and  posts,  and  there  they  might  hang,  seen  and 
despised,  more  like  malefactors  than  laws :  but  when  religion 
binds  them  upon  the  conscience,  conscience  will  either  persuade 
or  terrify  men  into  their  practice.  For  put  the  case,  a  man  knew, 
and  that  upon  sure  grounds,  that  he  might  do  an  advantageous 
murder  or  robbery,  and  not  be  discovered ;  what  human  laws 
could  hinder  him,  which  he  knows  cannot  inflict  any  penalty, 
where  they  can  make  no  discovery?  But  religion  assures  him, 
that  no  sin,  though  concealed  from  human  eyes,  can  either  escape 
God's  sight  in  this  world,  or  his  vengeance  in  the  other.  Put 
the  case  also,  that  men  looked  upon  death  without  fear,  in  which 
sense  it  is  nothing,  or  at  most  very  little ;  ceasing  while  it  is 
endured,  and  probably  without  pain,  for  it  seizes  upon  the  vitals 
and  benumbs  the  senses,  and  where  there  is  no  sense  there  can 
be  no  pain :  I  say,  if  while  a  man  is  acting  his  will  towards  sin, 
he  should  also  thus  act  his  reason  to  despise  death,  where  would 
be  the  terror  of  the  magistrate,  who  can  neither  threaten  or  inflict 
any  more?  Hence  an  old  malefactor  in  his  execution  at  the 
gallows  made  no  other  confession  but  this,  that  he  had  very 
jocundly  passed  over  his  life  in  such  courses;  and  he  that  would 
not  for  fifty  years'  pleasure  endure  half  an  hour's  pain,  deserved 
to  die  a  worse  death  than  himself.  Questionless  this  man  was 
not  ignorant  before  that  there  were  such  things  as  laws,  assizes, 
and  gallows ;  but  had  he  considered  and  believed  the  terrors  of 
another  world,  he  might  probably  have  found  a  fairer  passage 
out  of  this.  If  there  was  not  a  minister  in  every  parish,  you 
would  quickly  find  cause  to  increase  the  number  of  constables ; 
and  if  the  churches  were  not  employed  to  be  places  to  hear  God's 
law,  there  would  be  need  of  them  to  be  prisons  for  breakers  of 
the  laws  of  men.  Hence  it  is  observable  that  the  tribe  of  Levi 
had  not  one  place  or  portion  together  like  the  rest  of  the  tribes ; 
but  because  it  was  their  office  to  dispense  religion,  they  were 
diffused  over  all  the  tribes,  that  they  might  be  continually 
preaching  to  the  rest  their  duty  to  God  ;  which  is  the  most 
effectual  way  to  dispose  them  to  obedience  to  man :  for  he  that 
truly  fears  God  cannot  despise  the  magistrate.  Yea,  so  near  is 
the  connection  between  the  civil  state  and  religious,  that  hereto- 
fore, if  you  look  upon  well  regulated,  civilized  heathen  nations, 
you  will  find  the  government  and  the  priesthood  united  in  the 
same  person :  Jlnius,  rex  idem  hominum,  Phcebique  sacerdos.  JEn. 
3,  ver.  80.  If  under  the  true  worship  of  God:  "  Melchisedec, 
king  of  Salem,  and  priest  of  the  most  high  God,"  Heb.  vii.  1. 
And  afterwards  Moses  (whom  as  we  acknowledge  a  pious,  so 
atheists  themselves  will  confess  to  have  been  a  wise  prince),  he, 
when  lie  took  the  kingly  government  upon  himself,  by  his  own 
choice,  seconded  by  divine  institution,  vested  the  priesthood  in 
his  brother  Aaron,  both  whose  concernments  were  so  coupled, 


ECCLESIASTICAL  POLICY  THE  BEST  POLICY. 


59 


that  if  nature  had  not,  yet  their  religious,  nay,  civil  interests 
would  have  made  them  brothers.  And  it  was  once  the  design 
of  the  emperor  of  Germany,  Maximilian  the  first,  to  have  joined  the 
popedom  and  the  empire  together,  and  to  have  got  himself  chosen 
pope,  and  by  that  means  derived  the  papacy  to  succeeding  em- 
perors. Had  he  effected  it,  doubtless  there  would  not  have  been 
such  souffles  between  them  and  the  bishop  of  Rome;  the  civil 
interest  of  the  state  would  not  have  been  undermined  by  an  adverse 
interest,  managed  by  the  specious  and  potent  pretences  of  religion. 
And  to  see,  even  amongst  us,  how  these  two  are  united,  how 
the  former  is  upheld  by  the  latter:  the  magistrate  sometimes 
cannot  do  his  own  office  dexterously,  but  by  acting  the  minister. 
Hence  it  is  that  judges  of  assizes  find  it  necessary  in  their 
charges  to  use  pathetical  discourses  of  conscience  ;  and  if  it  were 
not  for  the  sway  of  this,  they  would  often  lose  the  best  evidence 
in  the  world  against  malefactors,  which  is  confession:  for  no 
man  would  confess  and  be  hanged  here,  but  to  avoid  being  damned 
hereafter. 

Thus  I  have,  in  general,  shown  the  utter  inability  of  the 
magistrate  to  attain  the  ends  of  government,  without  the  aid  of 
religion.  But  it  may  be  here  replied,  that  many  are  not  at  all 
moved  with  arguments  drawn  from  hence,  or  with  the  happy  or 
miserable  state  of  the  soul  after  death;  and  therefore  this  avails 
little  to  procure  obedience,  and  consequently  to  advance  govern- 
ment. I  answer  by  concession,  That  this  is  true  of  epicures, 
atheists,  and  some  pretended  philosophers,  who  have  stifled  the 
notions  of  Deity  and  the  soul's  immortality ;  but  the  unprepos- 
sessed on  the  one  hand,  and  the  well  disposed  on  the  other,  who 
both  together  make  much  the  major  part  of  the  world,  are  very 
apt  to  be  affected  with  a  due  fear  of  these  things ;  and  religion 
accommodating  itself  to  the  generality,  though  not  to  every  par- 
ticular temper,  sufficiently  secures  government :  inasmuch  as  that 
stands  or  falls  according  to  the  behaviour  of  the  multitude.  And 
whatsoever  conscience  makes  the  generality  obey,  to  that  pru- 
dence will  make  the  rest  conform.  Wherefore,  having  proved 
the  dependence  of  government  upon  religion,  I  shall  now 
demonstrate,  that  the  safety  of  government  depends  upon  the 
truth  of  religion.  False  religion  is,  in  its  nature,  the  greatest 
bane  and  destruction  to  government  in  the  world.  The  reason 
is,  because  whatsoever  is  false  is  also  weak.  Ens  and  verum  in 
philosophy  are  the  same ;  and  so  much  as  any  religion  has  of 
falsity,  it  loses  of  strength  and  existence.  Falsity  gains  author- 
ity only  from  ignorance,  and  therefore  is  in  danger  to  be  known ; 
for  from  being  false,  the  next  immediate  step  is  to  be  known  to 
be  such.  And  what  prejudice  this  would  be  to  the  civil  govern- 
ment is  apparent,  if  men  should  be  awed  into  obedience,  and 
affrighted  from  sin  by  rewards  and  punishments,  proposed  to  them 
in  such  a  religion,  which  afterwards  should  be  detected,  and  found 


60 


DR.  SOUTH  S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IV. 


a  niere  falsity  and  cheat ;  for  if  one  part  be  but  found  to  be  false, 
it  will  make  the  whole  suspicious.  And  men  will  then  not  only 
cast  off  obedience  to  the  civil  magistrate,  but  they  will  do  it  with 
disdain  and  rage,  that  they  have  been  deceived  so  long,  and 
brought  to  do  that  out  of  conscience,  which  was  imposed  upon 
them  out  of  design ;  for  though  men  are  often  willingly  deceived, 
yet  still  it  must  be  under  an  opinion  of  being  instructed. 
Though  they  love  the  deception,  yet  they  mortally  hate  it  under 
that  appearance :  therefore  it  is  noways  safe  for  a  magistrate, 
who  is  to  build  his  dominion  upon  the  fears  of  men,  to  build 
those  fears  upon  a  false  religion.  It  is  not  to  be  doubted,  but 
the  absurdity  of  Jeroboam's  calves  made  many  Israelites  turn 
subjects  to  Rehoboam's  government,  that  they  might  be  proselytes 
to  his  religion.  Herein  the  weakness  of  the  Turkish  religion 
appears,  that  it  urges  obedience  upon  the  promise  of  such  absurd 
rewards,  as  that,  after  death,  they  should  have  palaces,  gardens, 
beautiful  women,  with  all  the  luxury  that  could  be:  as  if  those 
things,  that  were  the  occasions  and  incentives  of  sin  in  this  world, 
could  be  the  rewards  of  holiness  in  the  other :  besides  many 
other  inventions,  false  and  absurd,  that  are  like  so  many  chinks 
and  holes  to  discover  the  rottenness  of  the  whole  fabric,  when  God 
shall  be  pleased  to  give  light  to  discover  and  open  their  reasons 
to  discern  them.  But  you  will  say,  What  government  more  sure 
and  absolute  than  the  Turkish,  and  yet  what  religion  more  false  ? 
Therefore  certainly  government  may  stand  sure  and  strong,  be 
the  religion  professed  never  so  absurd.  I  answer,  that  it  may  be 
so  by  accident,  through  the  strange  peculiar  temper  and  gross 
ignorance  of  a  people,  as  we  see  it  happens  in  the  Turks,  the 
best  part  of  whose  policy,  supposing  the  absurdity  of  their  reli- 
gion, is  this,  that  they  prohibit  schools  of  learning ;  for  this 
hinders  knowledge  and  disputes,  which  such  a  religion  would  not 
bear.  But  suppose  we,  that  the  learning  of  these  western  nations 
were  as  great  there,  as  here,  and  the  Alcoran  as  common  to 
them  as  the  bible  to  us,  that  they  might  have  free  recourse  to 
search  and  examine  the  flaws  and  follies  of  it,  and  withal  that 
they  were  of  as  inquisitive  a  temper  as  we:  and  who  knows,  but 
as  there  are  vicissitudes  in  the  government,  so  there  may  happen 
the  same  also  in  the  temper  of  a  nation  ?  If  this  should  come  to 
pass,  where  would  be  their  religion?  And  then  let  every  one 
judge,  whether  the  arcana  imperii  and  religionis  would  not  fall 
together  ?  They  have  begun  to  totter  already  ;  for  Mahomet  having 
promised  to  come  and  visit  his  followers,  and  translate  them  to 
paradise,  after  a  thousand  years,  this  being  expired,  many  of  the 
Persians  began  to  doubt  and  smell  the  cheat,  till  the  mufti,  or 
chief-priest,  told  them  that  it  was  a  mistake  in  the  figure,  and 
assured  them,  that  upon  more  diligent  survey  of  the  records,  he 
found  it  two  thousand,  instead  of  one.  When  this  is  expired, 
perhaps  they  will  not  be  able  to  renew  the  fallacy.    I  say  there- 


ECCLESIASTICAL  POLICY  THE  BEST  POLICY. 


61 


fore,  that  though  this  government  continues  firm  in  the  exercise 
of  a  false  religion,  yet  this  is  by  accident,  through  the  present 
genius  of  the  people,  which  may  change  :  but  this  does  not  prove 
but  that  the  nature  of  such  a  religion,  of  which  we  only  now 
speak,  tends  to  subvert  and  betray  the  civil  powder.  Hence 
Machiavel  himself,  in  his  animadversions  upon  Livy,  makes  it 
appear,  that  the  weakness  of  Italy,  which  was  once  so  strong, 
was  caused  by  the  corrupt  practices  of  the  papacy,  in  depraving 
and  misusing  religion  to  that  purpose,  which  he,  though  himself  a 
papist,  says,  could  not  have  happened,  had  the  Christian  religion 
been  kept  in  its  first  and  native  simplicity.  Thus  much  may 
suffice  for  the  clearing  of  the  first  proposition. 
The  inferences  from  hence  are  two. 

1.  If  government  depends  upon  religion,  then  this  shews  the 
pestilential  design  of  those  that  attempt  to  disjoin  the  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  interest,  setting  the  latter  wholly  out  of  the  tuition 
of  the  former.  But  it  is  clear  that  the  fanatics  know  no  other 
step  to  the  magistracy,  but  through  the  ruin  of  the  ministry. 
There  is  a  great  analogy  between  the  body  natural  and  politic  ; 
in  which  the  ecclesiastical  or  spiritual  part  justly  supplies  the 
part  of  the  soul,  and  the  violent  separation  of  this  from  the 
other  does  as  certainly  infer  death  and  dissolution,  as  the  dis- 
junction of  the  body  and  the  soul  in  the  natural ;  for  when  this 
once  departs,  it  leaves  the  body  of  the  commonwealth  a  carcass, 
noisome  and  exposed  to  be  devoured  by  birds  of  prey.  The 
ministry  will  be  one  day  found,  according  to  Christ's  word,  "  the 
salt  of  the  earth,"  the  only  thing  that  keeps  societies  of  men  from 
stench  and  corruption.  These  two  interests  are  of  that  nature,  that 
it  is  to  be  feared  they  cannot  be  divided,  but  they  will  also  prove 
opposite  ;  and,  not  resting  in  a  bare  diversity,  quickly  rise  into  a 
contrariety.  These  two  are  to  the  state  what  the  elements  of 
fire  and  water  are  to  the  body,  which  united  compose,  separated 
destroy  it.  I  am  not  of  the  papists'  opinion,  who  would  make 
the  spiritual  above  the  civil  state  in  power  as  well  as  dignity,  but 
rather  subject  it  to  the  civil  ;  yet  thus  much  I  dare  affirm,  that 
the  civil,  which  is  superior,  is  upheld  and  kept  up  in  being  by  the 
ecclesiastical  and  inferior ;  as  it  is  in  a  building,  where  the  upper 
part  is  supported  by  the  lower ;  the  church  resembling  the  foun- 
dation, which  indeed  is  the  lowest  part,  but  the  most  considera- 
ble. The  magistracy  cannot  so  much  protect  the  ministry,  but 
the  ministers  may  do  more  in  serving  the  magistrate.  A  taste 
of  which  truth  you  may  take  from  the  holy  war,  to  which  how 
fast  and  eagerly  did  men  go,  when  the  priest  persuaded  them, 
that  whosoever  died  in  that  expedition,  was  a  martyr  ?  Those 
that  will  not  be  convinced  what  a  help  this  is  to  the  magistracy, 
would  find  how  considerable  it  is,  if  they  should  chance  to  clash  ; 
this  would  certainly  beat  out  the  other.  For  the  magistrate  can- 
net  urge  obedience  upon  such  potent  grounds,  as  the  minister,  if 


62 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IV. 


so  disposed,  can  urge  disobedience.  As  for  instance,  if  my 
governor  should  command  me  to  do  a  thing,  or  I  must  die,  or 
forfeit  my  estate  ;  and  the  minister  steps  in,  and  tells  me,  that 
I  offend  God,  and  ruin  my  soul,  if  I  obey  that  command,  it  is 
easy  to  see  a  greater  force  in  this  persuasion  from  the  advantage 
of  its  ground.  And  if  divines  once  begin  "  to  curse  Meroz," 
we  shall  see  that  Levi  can  use  the  sword  as  well  as  Simeon ;  and 
although  ministers  do  not  handle,  yet  they  can  employ  it.  This 
shows  the  imprudence,  as  well  as  the  danger  of  the  civil  magis- 
trate's exasperating  those  that  can  fire  men's  consciences  against 
him,  and  arm  his  enemies  with  religion.  For  I  have  read  here- 
tofore of  some,  that  having  conceived  an  irreconcilable  hatred 
of  the  civil  magistrate,  prevailed  with  men  so  far,  that  they 
went  to  resist  him  even  out  of  conscience,  and  a  full  persuasion 
and  dread  upon  their  spirits,  that,  not  to  do  it,  were  to  desert 
God,  and  consequently  to  incur  damnation.*  Now  when  men's 
rage  is  both  heightened  and  sanctified  by  conscience,  the  war  will 
be  fierce  ;  for  what  is  done  out  of  conscience,  is  done  with  the 
utmost  activity.  And  then  Campanella's  speech  to  the  king  of 
Spain  will  be  found  true,  Religio  semper  vicit,  pmsertim  armata; 
which  sentence  deserves  seriously  to  be  considered  by  all  govern- 
ors, and  timely  to  be  understood,  lest  it  comes  to  be  felt. 

2.  If  the  safety  of  government  is  founded  upon  the  truth  of 
religion,  then  this  shows  the  danger  of  any  thing  that  may  make 
even  the  true  religion  suspected  to  be  false.  To  be  false,  and 
to  be  thought  false,  is  all  in  one  respect  of  men,  who  act  not 
according  to  truth,  but  apprehension  ;  as,  on  the  contrary,  a  false 
religion,  while  apprehended  true,  has  the  force  and  efficacy  of 
truth.  Now  there  is  nothing  more  apt  to  induce  men  to  a  sus- 
picion of  any  religion,  than  frequent  innovation  and  change : 
for  since  the  object  of  religion,  God ;  the  subject  of  it,  the 
soul  of  man  ;  and  the  business  of  it,  truth,  is  always  one  and 
the  same ;  variety  and  novelty  is  a  just  presumption  of  falsity. 
It  argues  sickness  and  distemper  in  the  mind,  as  well  as  in  the 
body,  when  a  man  is  continually  turning  and  tossing  from  one 
side  to  the  other.  The  wise  Romans  ever  dreaded  the  least 
innovation  in  religion  :  hence  we  find  the  advice  of  Maecenas  to 
Augustus  Csesar,  in  Dion  Cassius,  in  the  fifty-second  book,  where 
he  counsels  him  to  detest  and  persecute  all  innovators  of  divine 
worship,  not  only  as  contemners  of  the  gods,  but  as  the  most 
pernicious  disturbers  of  the  state.  For  when  men  venture  to 
make  changes  in  things  sacred,  it  argues  great  boldness  with  God, 
and  this  naturally  imports  little  belief  of  him ;  which  if  the 
people  once  perceive,  they  will  take  their  creed  also,  not  from  the 
magistrate's  laws,  but  his  example.  Hence  in  England,  where 
religion  has  been  still  purifying,  and  hereupon  almost  always  in 
the  fire  and  the  furnace ;   atheists  and  irreligious  persons  have 

*  See  Serm.  xii. 


ECCLESIASTICAL  POLICY  THE  BEST  POLICY. 


63 


taken  no  small  advantage  from  our  changes.  For  in  king  Edward 
the  sixth's  time,  the  divine  worship  was  twice  altered  in  two  new 
liturgies.  In  the  first  of  queen  Mary,  the  protestant  religion 
was  persecuted  with  fire  and  fagot,  by  law  and  public  counsel 
of  the  same  persons,  who  had  so  lately  established  it.  Upon 
the  coming  in  of  queen  Elizabeth,  religion  was  changed  again, 
and  within  a  few  days  the  public  council  of  the  nation  made  it 
death  for  a  priest  to  convert  any  man  to  that  religion,  which 
before  with  so  much  eagerness  of  zeal  had  been  restored.  So 
that  is  observed  by  an  author,  that  in  the  space  of  twelve  years, 
there  were  four  changes  about  religion  made  in  England,  and 
that  by  the  public  council  and  authority  of  the  realm ;  which 
were  more  than  were  made  by  any  Christian  state  throughout 
the  world,  so  soon  one  after  another,  in  the  space  of  fifteen  hun- 
dred years  before.  Hence  it  is,  that  the  enemies  of  God  take 
occasion  to  blaspheme,  and  call  our  religion  statism.  And  now 
adding  to  the  former  those  many  changes  that  have  happened 
since,  I  am  afraid  we  shall  not  so  easily  claw  off  that  name ;  nor, 
though  we  may  satisfy  our  own  conscience  in  what  we  profess, 
be  able  to  repel  and  clear  off  the  objections  of  the  rational  world 
about  us,  which  not  being  interested  in  our  changes  as  we  are, 
will  not  judge  of  them  as  we  judge :  but  debate  them  by  impar- 
tial reason,  by  the  nature  of  the  thing,  the  general  practice  of 
the  church  ;  against  which  new  lights,  sudden  impulses  of  the  Spi- 
rit, extraordinary  calls,  will  be  but  weak  arguments  to  prove  any 
thing  but  the  madness  of  those  that  use  them,  and  that  the 
church  must  needs  wither,  being  blasted  with  such  inspirations. 
We  see  therefore  how  fatal  and  ridiculous  innovations  in  the 
church  are :  and  indeed  when  changes  are  so  frequent,  it  ia 
not  properly  religion,  but  fashion.  This,  I  think,  we  may 
build  upon  as  a  sure  ground,  that  where  there  is  continual 
change,  there  is  great  show  of  uncertainty,  and  uncertainty  in 
religion  is  a  shrewd  motive,  if  not  to  deny,  yet  to  doubt  of  its 
truth. 

Thus  much  for  the  first  doctrine.  I  proceed  now  to  the 
second,  viz.  : 

II.  That  the  next  and  most  effectual  way  to  destroy  religion,  is 
to  embase  the  teachers  and  dispensers  of  it.  In  the  handling  of  this 
I  shall  show, 

1.  How  the  dispensers  of  religion,  the  ministers  of  the  word,  are 
embased  or  rendered  vile.  2.  How  the  embasing  or  vilifying  them 
is  a  means  to  destroy  religion. 

1.  For  the  first  of  these,  the  ministers  and  dispensers  of  the  word 
are  rendered  base  or  vile  two  ways : 

(1.)  By  divesting  them  of  all  temporal  privileges  and  advan- 
tages, as  inconsistent  with  their  calling.  It  is  strange,  since  the 
priest's  office  heretofore  was  always  splendid,  and  almost  regal, 


64 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  IV. 


that  it  is  now  looked  upon  as  a  piece  of  religion,  to  make  it  low 
and  sordid.  So  that  the  use  of  the  word  minister  is  brought  down 
to  the  literal  signification  of  it,  a  servant;  for  now  to  serve  and 
to  minister,  servile,  and  ministerial,  are  terms  equivalent.  But  in 
the  Old  Testament  the  same  word  signifies  a  priest,  and  a  prince, 
or  chief  ruler:  hence,  though  we  translate  it  "priest  of  On," 
Gen.  xli.  45,  and  "priest  of  Midian,"  Exod.  iii.  1,  and  "  as  it  is 
with  the  people,  so  with  the  priest,"  Isa.  xxiv.  2,  Junius  and 
Tremellius  render  all  these  places,  not  by  sacerdos,  priest,  but 
by  prceses,  that  is,  a  prince,  or  at  least,  a  chief  counsellor,  or 
minister  of  state.  And  it  is  strange,  that  the  name  should  be 
the  same,  when  the  nature  of  the  thing  is  so  exceeding  different. 
The  like  also  may  be  observed  in  other  languages,  that  the  most 
illustrious  titles  are  derived  from  things  sacred,  and  belonging  to 
the  worship  of  God.  2fj3a<st6s  was  the  title  of  the  Christian 
Caesars,  correspondent  to  the  Latin  Augustus;  and  it  is  derived 
from  the  same  word  that  c^ow^a,  cultus,  res  sacra,  or  sacrificium. 
And  it  is  usual  in  our  language  to  make  sacred  an  epithet  to 
majesty;  there  was  a  certain  royalty  in  things  sacred.  Hence 
the  apostle,  who,  I  think,  was  no  enemy  to  the  simplicity  of  the 
gospel,  speaks  of  "  a  royal  priesthood,"  1  Pet.  ii.  9,  which  shows, 
at  least,  that  there  is  no  contradiction  or  impiety  in  those  terms. 
In  old  time,  before  the  placing  this  office  only  in  the  line  of 
Aaron,  the  head  of  the  family,  and  first-born  offered  sacrifice  for 
the  rest ;  that  is,  was  their  priest.  And  we  know,  that  such  rule 
and  dignity  belonged  at  first  to  the  masters  of  families,  that  they 
had  jus  vitce  et  necis,  jurisdiction  and  power  of  life  and  death  in 
their  own  family ;  and  from  hence  was  derived  the  beginning  of 
kingly  government,  a  king  being  only  a  civil  head,  or  master  of 
a  politic  family,  the  whole  people ;  so  that  we  see  the  same  was 
the  foundation  of  the  royal  and  sacerdotal  dignity.  As  for  the 
dignity  of  this  office  among  the  Jews,  it  is  so  pregnantly  set 
forth  in  holy  writ,  that  it  is  unquestionable.  Kings  and  priests 
are  still  mentioned  together,  Lam.  ii.  6,  "  The  Lord  hath  despised 
in  the  indignation  of  his  anger  the  king  and  the  priest ;"  Hos.  v. 
2,  "Hear,  O  priests,  and  give  ear,  0  house  of  the  king;"  Deut. 
xvii.  12,  "And  the  man  that  doeth  presumptuously,  and  will  not 
hearken  unto  the  priest  that  standeth  to  minister  there  before 
the  Lord  thy  God,  or  unto  the  judge,  even  that  man  shall  die." 
Hence  Paul,  together  with  a  blow,  received  this  reprehension, 
Acts  xxiii.  4,  "  Revilest  thou  God's  high-priest?"  And  Paul  in 
the  next  verse  does  not  defend  himself,  by  pleading  an  extraor- 
dinary motion  of  the  Spirit,  or  that  he  was  sent  to  reform  the 
church,  and  might  therefore  lawfully  vilify  the  priesthood  and 
all  sacred  orders ;  but  in  the  fifth  verse  he  makes  an  excuse,  and 
that  from  ignorance,  the  only  thing  that  could  take  away  the 
fault ;  namely,  "  that  he  knew  not  that  he  was  the  high-priest," 
and  subjoins  a  reason  which  farther  advances  the  truth  here 


ECCLESIASTICAL  POLICY  THE  BEST  POLICY.  65 

defended;  "for  it  is  written,  Thou  shalt  not  speak  evil  of  the 
ruler  of  thy  people."  To  holy  writ  we  might  add  the  testimony 
of  Josephus,  of  next  authority  to  it  in  things  concerning  the 
Jews,  who  in  sundry  places  of  his  history  sets  forth  the  dignity 
of  the  priests;  and  in  his  second  book  against  Apion  the  gram- 
marian, '  has    these   words,    rtdvtuv  tw   a^ia^-tovfttvuiv    btxaatai  ol 

leptis  ttdx9rjaav,  the  priests  were  constituted  judges  of  all  doubtful 
causes.     Hence  Justin  also  in  his  thirty-sixth  book  has  this, 
Semper  apud  Judceos  mosfuit,  ut  eosdem  rcges  et  sacer dotes  haberent. 
Though  this  is  false,  that  they  were  always  so,  yet  it  argues, 
that  they  were  so  frequently,  and  that   the  distance  between 
them  was  not  great.    To  the  Jews  we  may  join  the  Egyptians, 
the  first  masters  of  learning  and  philosophy.    Synesius,  in  his 
57th  epist.,  having   shown  the    general   practice  of  antiquity, 
o  7taa.cn  ^po>/of  rjvtyxs  tovf  av?oh$  tsp«a$  it  xai  xptVaj,  gives  an  instance  in 
the   Jews   and   Egyptians,  who  for  many  ages  vn6  iC*>  iepew 
ipa'n'kevOtioav,  had  no  other  kings  but  priests.    Next,  we  may  take 
a  view  of  the  practice  of  the  Romans :  Numa  Pompilius,  who 
civilized  the  fierce  Romans,  is  reported  in  the  first  book  of 
Livy  sometimes  to  have  performed  the  priest's  office  himself, 
Turn  sacerdotibus  creandis  animum  adjecit,  quanquam  ipse  plurima 
sacra  obibat ;  but  when  he  made  priests,  he  gave  them  a  dignity 
almost   the    same  with  himself.     And   this  honour  continued 
together  with  the  valour  and  prudence  of  that  nation :  for  the 
success  of  the  Romans  did  not  extirpate  their  religion ;  the  college 
of  the  priests  being  in  many  things  exempted  even  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  senate,  afterwards  the  supreme  power.  Hence 
Juvenal,  in  his  2nd  Sat.,  mentions  the  priesthood  of  Mars,  as 
one  of  the  most  honourable  places  in  Rome.    And  Julius  Caesar, 
who  was  chosen  priest  in  his  private  condition,  thought  it  not 
below  him  to  continue  the  same  office  when  he  was  created 
absolute  governor  of  Rome,  under  the  name  of  perpetual  dictator. 
Add  to  these  the  practice  of  the  Gauls  mentioned  by  Csesar, 
in  his  6th  book  de  Bello  Gallico,  where  he  says  of  the  Druids, 
who  were  their  priests,  that  they  did  judge  de  omnibus  fere  con- 
trover  siis  publicis  pnvatisque.    See  also  Homer  in  the  first  book 
of  his  Iliad,  representing  Chryses  priest  of  Apollo,  with  his  golden 
sceptre,  as  well  as  his  golden  censer.    But  why  have  I  produced 
all  these  examples  of  the  heathens  ?    Is  it  to  make  these  a  ground 
of  our  imitation  ?    No,  but  to  show  that  the  giving  honour  to  the 
priesthood  was  a  custom  universal  amongst  all  civilized  nations. 
And  whatsoever  is  universal  is  also  natural,  as  not  being  founded 
upon  compact,  or  the  particular  humours  of  men,  but  flowing 
from  the  native  results  of  reason ;  and  that  which  is  natural 
neither  does  nor  can  oppose  religion.    But  you  will  say,  This 
concerns  not  us,  who  have  an  express  rule  and  word  revealed. 
Christ  was  himself  poor  and  despised,  and  withal  has  instituted 
such  a  ministry.    To  the  first  part  of  this  plea  I  answer,  that 
Vol.  I.— 9  f2 


66 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IV. 


Christ  came  to  suffer,  yet  the  sufferings  and  miseries  of  ■  Christ 
do  not  oblige  all  Christians  to  undertake  the  like.  For  the 
second,  that  the  ministry  of  Christ  was  low  and  despised  by  his 
institution,  I  utterly  deny.  It  was  so,  indeed,  by  the  malice 
and  persecution  of  the  heathen  princes ;  but  what  does  this  argue 
or  infer  for  a  low,  dejected  ministry  in  a  flourishing  state,  which 
professes  to  encourage  Christianity?  But  to  dash  this  cavil,  read 
but  the  practice  of  Christian  emperors  and  kings  all  along,  down 
from  the  time  of  Constantine,  in  what  respect,  what  honour  and 
splendour  they  treated  the  ministers  ;  and  then  let  our  adversaries 
produce  their  puny,  pitiful  arguments  for  the  contrary,  against 
the  general,  clear,  undoubted  vogue  and  current  of  all  antiquity. 
As  for  two  or  three  little  countries  about  us,  the  learned  and 
impartial  will  not  value  their  practice ;  in  one  of  which  places 
the  minister  has  been  seen,  for  mere  want,  to  mend  shoes  on 
the  Saturday,  and  been  heard  to  preach  on  the  Sunday.  In  the 
other  place,  stating  the  several  orders  of  the  citizens,  they  place 
their  ministers  after  their  apothecaries ;  that  is,  the  physician  of 
the  soul  after  the  drugster  of  the  body ;  a  fit  practice  for  those, 
who,  if  they  were  to  rank  things  as  well  as  persons,  would  place 
their  religion  after  their  trade. 

And  thus  much  concerning  the  first  way  of  debasing  the  ministers 
and  ministry. 

(2.)  The  second  way  is  by  admitting  ignorant,  sordid,  illiterate 
persons  to  this  function.  This  is  to  give  the  royal  stamp  to  a 
piece  of  lead.  I  confess,  God  has  no  need  of  any  man's  parts  or 
learning  ;  but  certainly  then,  he  has  much  less  need  of  his  ignorance 
and  ill  behaviour.  It  is  a  sad  thing,  when  all  other  employments 
shall  empty  themselves  into  the  ministry :  when  men  shall  repair 
to  it,  not  for  preferment,  but  refuge ;  like  malefactors  flying  to 
the  altar,  only  to  save  their  lives ;  or  like  those  of  Eli's  race 
(1  Sam.  ii.  36),  that  should  come  crouching,  and  seek  to  be  put 
into  the  priest's  office,  that  they  might  eat  a  piece  of  bread.  Here- 
tofore there  was  required  splendour  of  parentage  to  recommend 
any  one  to  the  priesthood ;  as  Josephus  witnesses  in  a  treatise 
which  he  wrote  of  his  own  life ;  when  he  says,  to  have  right  to 
deal  in  things  sacred,  was,  amongst  them,  accounted  an  argument 
of  a  noble  and  illustrious  descent.  God  would  not  accept  the 
offals  of  other  professions.  Doubtless  many  rejected  Christ  upon 
this  thought,  that  he  was  the  carpenter's  son,  who  would  have 
embraced  him,  had  they  known  him  to  have  been  the  Son  of 
David.  The  preferring  undeserving  persons  to  this  great  service, 
was  eminently  Jeroboam's  sin ;  and  how  Jeroboam's  practice  and 
offence  has  been  continued  amongst  us  in  another  guise,  is  not 
unknown  ;  for  has  not  learning  unqualified  men  for  approbation 
to  the  ministry?  Have  not  parts  and  abilities  been  reputed 
enemies  to  grace,  and  qualities  noways  ministerial  ?  While 
friends,  faction,  well-meaning,  and  little  understanding  have  been 


ECCLESIASTICAL  POLICY  THE  BEST  POLICY. 


accomplishments  beyond  study  and  the  university ;  and  to  falsify 
a  story  of  conversion,  beyond  pertinent  answers  and  clear  reso- 
lutions to  the  hardest  and  most  concerning  questions.  So  that 
matters  have  been  brought  to  this  pass,  that  if  a  man  amongst 
his  sons  had  any  blind  or  disfigured,  he  laid  him  aside  for  the 
ministry ;  and  such  a  one  was  presently  approved,  as  having  a 
mortified  countenance.  In  short,  it  was  a  fiery  furnace,  which  often 
approved  dross,  and  rejected  gold.  But  thanks  be  to  God,  those 
"  spiritual  wickednesses"  are  now  discharged  from  their  "  high 
places."  Hence  it  was,  that  many  rushed  into  the  ministry,  as 
being  the  only  calling  that  they  could  profess  without  serving  an 
apprenticeship.  Hence  also  we  had  those  that  could  preach 
sermons,  but  not  defend  them.  The  reason  of  which  is  clear, 
because  the  works  and  writings  of  learned  men  might  be  bor- 
rowed, but  not  their  abilities.  Had  indeed  the  old  Levitical  hie- 
rarchy still  continued,  in  which  it  was  part  of  the  ministerial  office 
to  flay  the  sacrifices,  to  cleanse  the  vessels,  to  scour  the  flesh- 
forks,  to  sweep  the  temple,  and  carry  the  filth  and  rubbish  to  the 
brook  Kidron,  no  persons  living  had  been  fitter  for  the  ministry, 
and  to  serve  in  this  nature  at  the  altar.  But  since  it  is  made  a 
labour  of  the  mind  ;  as  to  inform  men's  judgments,  and  move 
their  affections,  to  resolve  difficult  places  of  scripture,  to  decide 
and  clear  off  controversies  ;  I  cannot  see  how  to  be  a  butcher, 
scavenger,  or  any  other  such  trade,  does  at  all  qualify  or  prepare 
men  for  this  work.  But,  as  unfit  as  they  were,  yet  to  clear  a  way 
for  such  into  the  ministry,  we  have  had  almost  all  sermons  full 
of  gibes  and  scoffs  at  human  learning.  Away  with  "  vain  philo- 
sophy, with  the  disputer  of  this  world,  and  the  enticing  words  of 
man's  wisdom,"  and  set  up  the  "  foolishness  of  preaching,  the 
simplicity  of  the  gospel."  Thus  divinity  has  been  brought  in 
upon  the  ruins  of  humanity,  by  forcing  the  words  of  the  scrip- 
ture from  the  sense,  and  then  haling  them  to  the  worst  of 
drudgeries,  to  set  a  jus  divinum  upon  ignorance  and  imperfection, 
and  recommend  natural  weakness  for  supernatural  grace.  Here- 
upon the  ignorant  have  taken  heart  to  venture  upon  this  great 
calling,  and  instead  of  cutting  their  way  to  it,  according  to  the 
usual  course,  through  the  knowledge  of  the  tongues,  the  study  of 
philosophy,  school  divinity,  the  fathers  and  councils,  they  have 
taken  another  and  shorter  cut,  and  having  read  perhaps  a  treatise 
or  two  upon  The  Heart,  The  Bruised  Reed,  The  Crumbs  of 
Comfort,  Wollebius  in  English,  and  some  other  little  authors, 
the  usual  furniture  of  old  women's  closets,  they  have  set  forth  as 
accomplished  divines,  and  forthwith  they  present  themselves  to 
the  service ;  and  there  have  not  been  wanting  Jeroboams  as 
willing  to  consecrate  and  receive  them,  as  they  to  offer  themselves. 
And  this  has  been  one  of  the  most  fatal,  and  almost  irrecoverable 
blows  that  has  been  given  to  the  ministry. 

And  this  may  suffice  concerning  the  second  way  of  embasing 


68 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IV. 


God's  ministers ;  namely,  by  entrusting  the  ministry  with  raw, 
unlearned,  ill-bred  persons ;  so  that  what  Solomon  speaks  of  a 
proverb  in  the  mouth  of  a  fool,  the  same  may  be  said  of  the 
ministry  vested  in  them,  that  it  is  like  a  "pearl  in  a  swine's 
snout." 

2.  I  proceed  now  to  the  second  thing  proposed  in  the  discus- 
sion of  this  doctrine,  which  is  to  show  how  the  embasing  of  the 
ministers  tends  to  the  destruction  of  religion.  This  is  two 
ways. 

(1.)  Because  it  brings  them  under  exceeding  scorn  and  con- 
tempt ;  and  then,  let  none  think  religion  itself  secure  ;  for  the 
vulgar  have  not  such  logical  heads,  as  to  be  able  to  abstract  such 
subtile  conceptions  as  to  separate  the  man  from  the  minister,  or 
to  consider  the  same  person  under  a  double  capacity,  and  so 
honour  him  as  a  divine,  while  they  despise  him  as  poor.  But 
suppose  they  could,  yet  actions  cannot  distinguish  as  conceptions 
do ;  and  therefore  every  act  of  contempt  strikes  at  both,  and 
unavoidably  wounds  the  ministry  through  the  sides  of  the  minister. 
And  we  must  know,  that  the  least  degree  of  contempt  weakens 
religion,  because  it  is  absolutely  contrary  to  the  nature  of  it,  re- 
ligion properly  consisting  in  a  reverential  esteem  of  things  sacred. 
Now,  that  which  in  any  measure  weakens  religion,  will  at  length 
destroy  it ;  for  the  weakening  of  a  thing  is  only  a  partial 
destruction  of  it.  Poverty  and  meanness  of  condition  expose 
the  wisest  to  scorn,  it  being  natural  for  men  to  place  their 
esteem  rather  upon  things  great  than  good  ;  and  the  poet  ob- 
serves that  this  infelix  paupertas  has  nothing  in  it  more  intolera- 
ble than  this,  that  it  renders  men  ridiculous,  and  then,  how  easy 
and  natural  it  is  for  contempt  to  pass  from  the  person  to  the 
office,  from  him  that  speaks,  to  the  things  that  he  speaks  of,  ex- 
perience proves  ;  counsel  seldom  being  valued  so  much  for  the 
truth  of  the  thing,  as  the  credit  of  him  that  gives  it.  Observe 
an  excellent  passage  to  this  purpose  in  Eccles.  ix.  14,  15.  We 
have  an  account  of  a  little  city,  with  few  men  in  it,  besieged  by  a 
great  and  potent  king ;  and  in  the  15th  verse  we  read,  that 
"  there  was  found  in  it  a  poor  wise  man,  and  he  by  his  wisdom 
delivered  the  city."  A  worthy  service,  indeed,  and  certainly  we 
may  expect  that  some  honourable  recompense  should  follow  it ; 
a  deliverer  of  his  country,  and  that  in  such  distress,  could  not 
but  be  advanced.  But  we  find  a  contrary  event  in  the  next 
words  of  the  same  verse,  "  yet  none  remembered  that  same  poor 
man."  Why,  what  should  be  the  reason?  Was  he  not  a  man 
of  parts  and  wisdom  ?  And  is  not  wisdom  honourable  ?  Yes, 
but  "  he  was  poor."  But  was  he  not  also  successful,  as  well  as 
wise  ?  True  ;  but  still  "  he  was  poor  ;"  and  once  grant  this,  and 
you  cannot  keep  off  that  unavoidable  sequel  in  the  next  verse, 
"  The  poor  man's  wisdom  is  despised,  and  his  words  are  not 
heard."    We  may  believe  it  upon  Solomon's  word,  who  was  rich 


ECCLESIASTICAL  POLICY  THE  BEST  POLICY. 


69 


as  well  as  wise,  and  therefore  knew  the  force  of  both ;  and 
probably,  had  it  not  been  for  his  riches,  the  queen  of  Sheba 
would  not  have  come  so  far  only  to  have  heard  his  wisdom. 
Observe  her  behaviour  when  she  came :  though  upon  the  hearing 
of  Solomon's  wisdom,  and  the  resolution  of  her  hard  questions, 
she  expressed  a  just  admiration;  yet  when  Solomon  afterwards 
showed  her  his  palace,  his  treasures,  and  the  temple  which  he 
had  built,  1  Kings  x.  5,  it  is  said,  "there  was  no  more  spirit  in 
her."  What  was  the  cause  of  this?  Certainly,  the  magnificence, 
the  pomp  and  splendour  of  such  a  structure.  It  struck  her  into 
an  ecstasy  beyond  his  wise  answers.  She  esteemed  this  as  much 
above  his  wisdom,  as  astonishment  is  above  bare  admiration : 
she  admired  his  wisdom,  but  she  adored  his  magnificence.  So 
apt  is  the  mind,  even  of  wise  persons,  to  be  surprised  with  the 
superficies  or  circumstances  of  things,  and  value  or  undervalue 
spirituals,  according  to  the  manner  of  their  external  appearance. 
When  circumstances  fail,  the  substance  seldom  long  survives; 
clothes  are  no  part  of  the  body,  yet  take  away  clothes,  and  the 
body  will  die.  Livy  observes  of  Romulus,  that  being  to  give 
laws  to  his  new  Romans,  he  found  no  better  wray  to  procure  an 
esteem  and  reverence  to  them,  than  by  first  procuring  it  to  himself 
by  splendour  of  habit  and  retinue,  and  other  signs  of  royalty. 
And  the  wise  Numa,  his  successor,  took  the  same  course  to 
enforce  his  religious  laws,  namely,  by  giving  the  same  pomp  to 
the  priest,  who  was  to  dispense  them ;  Sacerdotem  creavit,  insignique 
eum  veste,  et  cumli  regid  selld  adornavit ;  that  is,  he  adorned 
him  with  a  rich  robe,  and  a  royal  chair  of  state.  And  in  our 
judicatures,  take  away  the  trumpet,  the  scarlet,  the  attendance, 
and  the  lordship,  which  would  be  to  make  justice  naked,  as  well 
as  blind,  and  the  law  would  lose  much  of  its  terror,  and  conse- 
quently of  its  authority.  Let  the  minister  be  abject  and  low, 
his  interest  inconsiderable,  the  word  will  suffer  for  his  sake ;  the 
message  will  still  find  reception  according  to  the  dignity  of  the 
messenger.  Imagine  an  ambassador  presenting  himself  in  a  poor 
frieze  jerkin  and  tattered  clothes,  certainly  he  would  have  but 
small  audience ;  his  embassy  would  speed  rather  according  to  the 
weakness  of  him  that  brought,  than  the  majesty  of  him  that  sent 
it.  It  will  fare  alike  with  the  ambassadors  of  Christ ;  the  people 
will  give  them  audience  according  to  their  presence;  a  notable 
example  of  which  we  have  in  the  behaviour  of  some  to  Paul 
himself,  1  Cor.  x.  10.  Hence  in  the  Jewish  church  it  was 
cautiously  provided  in  the  law,  that  none  that  was  blind  or  lame,  or 
had  any  remarkable  defect  in  his  body,  was  capable  of  the 
priestly  office ;  because  these  things  naturally  make  a  person 
contemned,  and  this  presently  reflects  upon  the  function.  This 
therefore  is  the  first  way  by  which  the  low,  despised  condition  of 
the  ministers  tends  to  the  destruction  of  the  ministry  and  reli- 
gion; namely,  because  it  subjects  their  persons  to  scorn,  and 


70 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IV. 


consequently  their  calling;  and  it  is  not  imaginable  that  men 
will  be  brought  to  obey  what  they  cannot  esteem. 

2.  The  second  way  by  which  it  tends  to  the  ruin  of  the 
ministry,  is,  because  it  discourages  men  of  fit  parts  and  abilities 
from  undertaking  it.  And  certain  it  is,  that  as  the  calling 
dignifies  the  man,  so  the  man  much  more  advances  his  calling; 
as  a  garment,  though  it  warms  the  body,  has  a  return  with  an 
advantage,  being  much  more  warmed  by  it.  And  how  often 
a  good  cause  may  miscarry  without  a  wise  manager;  and  the 
faith  for  want  of  a  defender,  is,  or  at  least,  may  be  known.  It 
is  not  the  truth  of  an  assertion,  but  the  skill  of  the  disputant, 
that  keeps  off  a  baffle  ;  not  the  justness  of  a  cause,  but  the  valour 
of  the  soldiers,  that  must  win  the  field.  When  a  learned  Paul  was 
converted,  and  undertook  the  ministry,  it  stopped  the  mouths  of 
those  that  said,  None  but  poor  weak  fishermen  preached  Chris- 
tianity ;  and  so  his  learning  silenced  the  scandal,  as  well  as  strength- 
ened the  church.  Religion,  placed  in  a  soul  of  exquisite  knowledge 
and  abilities,  as  in  a  castle,  finds  not  only  habitation,  but  defence. 
And  what  a  learned  foreign  divine*  said  of  the  English  preaching, 
may  be  said  of  all,  Plus  est  in  artifice  quam  in  arte.  So  much  of 
moment  is  there  in  the  professors  of  any  thing  to  depress  or  raise 
the  profession.  What  is  it  that  kept  the  church  of  Rome  strong, 
athletic,  and  flourishing  for  so  many  centuries,  but  the  happy 
succession  of  the  choicest  wits  engaged  to  her  service  by  suitable 
preferments  ?  And  what  strength,  do  we  think,  would  that  give 
to  the  true  religion,  that  is  able  thus  to  establish  a  false  ?  Reli- 
gion, in  a  great  measure,  stands  or  falls  according  to  the  abilities 
of  those  that  assert  it.  And  if,  as  some  men  observe,  men's  desires 
are  usually  as  large  as  their  abilities,  what  course  have  we  taken 
to  allure  the  former,  that  we  might  engage  the  latter  to  our 
assistance  ?  But  we  have  taken  all  ways  to  affright  and  discourage 
scholars  from  looking  towards  this  sacred  calling ;  for  will  men 
lay  out  their  wit  and  judgment  upon  that  employment,  for  the 
undertaking  of  which  both  will  be  questioned  ?  Would  men,  not 
long  since,  have  spent  toilsome  days  and  watchful  nights,  in  the 
laborious  quest  of  knowledge  preparative  to  this  work,  at  length 
to  come  and  dance  attendance  for  approbation  upon  a  junto  of 
petty  tyrants,  acted  by  party  and  prejudice,  who  denied  fitness 
from  learning,  and  grace  from  morality  ?  Will  a  man  exhaust 
his  livelihood  upon  books,  and  his  health,  the  best  part  of  his  life, 
upon  study,  to  be  at  length  thrust  into  a  poor  village,  where  he 
shall  have  his  due  precariously,  and  entreat  for  his  own ;  and 
when  he  has  it,  live  poorly  and  contemptibly  upon  it,  while  the 
same  or  less  labour  bestowed  upon  any  other  calling,  would 
bring  not  only  comfort,  but  splendour;  not  only  maintenance, 
but  abundance  ?  It  is,  I  confess,  the  duty  of  ministers  to  endure 
this  condition ;  but  neither  religion  or  reason  does  oblige  either 

*  Gaspar  Streso. 


ECCLESIASTICAL   POLICY  THE  BEST  POLICY. 


71 


them  to  approve,  or  others  to  choose  it.  Doubtless,  parents  will 
not  throw  away  the  towardness  of  a  child,  and  the  expense  of 
education,  upon  a  profession,  the  labour  of  which  is  increased,  and 
the  rewards  of  which  are  vanished.  To  condemn  promising,  lively 
parts  to  contempt  and  penury  in  a  despised  calling,  what  is  it  else 
but  the  casting  of  a  Moses  into  the  mud,  or  offering  a  son  upon 
the  altar,  and  instead  of  a  priest  to  make  him  a  sacrifice  ?  Neither 
let  any  here  reply,  that  it  becomes  not  a  ministerial  spirit  to  under- 
take such  a  calling  for  reward :  for  they  must  know,  that  it  is  one 
thing  to  undertake  it  for  a  reward,  and  not  to  be  willing  to  under- 
take it  without  one.  It  is  one  thing  to  perform  good  works  only 
that  we  may  receive  the  recompence  of  them  in  heaven,  and  another 
thing  not  to  be  willing  to  follow  Christ  and  forsake  the  world,  if 
there  were  no  such  recompence.  But  besides,  suppose  it  were  the 
duty  of  scholars  to  choose  this  calling  in  the  midst  of  all  its  dis- 
couragements;  yet  a  prudent  governor,  wTho  knows  it  to  be  his 
wisdom  as  well  as  his  duty  to  take  the  best  course  to  advance 
religion,  will  not  consider  men's  duty,  but  their  practice  ;  not  what 
they  ought  to  do,  but  what  they  use  to  do,  and  therefore  draw  over 
the  best  qualified  to  his  service,  by  such  ways  as  are  most  apt  to 
persuade  and  induce  men.  Solomon  built  his  temple  with  the 
tallest  cedars ;  and  surely  when  God  refused  the  defective  and  the 
maimed  for  sacrifice,  we  cannot  think  that  he  requires  them  for  the 
priesthood.  When  learning,  abilities,  and  what  is  excellent  in  the 
world,  forsake  the  church,  we  may  easily  foretell  its  ruin,  without 
the  gift  of  prophecy.  And  when  ignorance  succeeds  in  the  place 
of  learning,  weakness  in  the  room  of  judgment,  we  may  be  sure 
heresy  and  confusion  will  quickly  come  in  the  room  of  religion  ; 
for  undoubtedly  there  is  no  way  so -effectual  to  betray  the  truth,  as 
to  procure  it  a  weak  defender. 

Well  now,  instead  of  making  any  particular  uses  from  the  point 
that  has  been  delivered,  let  us  make  a  brief  recapitulation  of  the 
whole.  Government,  we  see,  depends  upon  religion,  and  religion 
upon  the  encouragement  of  those  that  are  to  dispense  and  assert  it. 
For  the  further  evidence  of  which  truths  we  need  not  travel  beyond 
our  own  borders ;  but  leave  it  to  every  one  impartially  to  judge, 
whether,  from  the  very  first  day  that  our  religion  was  unsettled,  and 
church  government  flung  out  of  doors,  the  civil  government  has 
ever  been  able  to  fix  upon  a  sure  foundation.  We  have  been 
changing  even  to  a  proverb.  The  indignation  of  heaven  has  been 
rolling  and  turning  us  from  one  form  to  another,  till  at  length  such 
a  giddiness  seized  upon  the  government,  that  it  fell  into  the  very 
dregs  of  sectaries,  who  threatened  an  equal  ruin  both  to  minister 
and  magistrate ;  and  how  the  state  has  sympathized  with  the 
church,  is  apparent :  for  have  not  our  princes  as  well  as  our 
priests  been  of  the  lowest  of  the  people  ?  Have  not  cobblers, 
draymen,  mechanics,  governed  as  well  as  preached  ?  Nay,  have 
not  they  by  preaching  come  to  govern  ?    Was  ever  that  of  Solo- 


72 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IV. 


mon  more  verified,  "  that  servants  have  rid,  while  princes  and 
nobles  have  gone  on  foot?"  But  God  has  been  pleased,  by  a 
miracle  of  mercy,  to  dissipate  this  confusion  and  chaos,  and  to 
give  us  some  openings,  some  dawnings  of  liberty  and  settlement. 
But  now,  let  not  those  who  are  to  rebuild  our  Jerusalem,  think  that 
the  temple  must  be  built  last ;  for  if  there  be  such  a  thing  as  a  God 
and  religion,  as  whether  men  believe  it  or  no,  they  will  one  day 
find  and  feel,  assuredly  he  will  stop  our  liberty,  till  we  restore  him 
his  worship.  Besides,  it  is  a  senseless  thing  in  reason,  to  think 
that  one  of  these  interests  can  stand  without  the  other,  when,  in 
the  very  order  of  natural  causes,  government  is  preserved  by  reli- 
gion. But  to  return  to  Jeroboam,  with  whom  we  first  began.  He 
laid  the  foundation  of  his  government  in  destroying,  though  doubt- 
less he  coloured  it  with  the  name  of  reforming  God's  worship  ;  but 
see  the  issue.  Consider  him  cursed  by  God,  maintaining  his 
usurped  title  by  continual  vexatious  wars  against  the  kings  of 
Judah ;  smitten  in  his  posterity,  which  was  made  like  the  dung 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth,  as  low  and  vile  as  those  priests  whom 
he  had  employed ;  consider  him  branded,  and  made  odious  to  all 
after  ages ;  and  now,  when  his  kingdom  and  glory  was  at  an  end, 
and  he  and  his  posterity  rotting  under  ground,  and  his  name  stink- 
ing above  it ;  judge  what  a  worthy  prize  he  made  in  getting  of  a 
kingdom,  by  destroying  the  church.  Wherefore  the  sum  of  all  is 
this ;  to  advise  and  desire  those  whom  it  may  concern,  to  consider 
Jeroboam's  punishment,  and  then  they  will  have  little  heart  to 
Jeroboam's  sin. 


A  SERMON 


Preached  at  Lambeth  Chapel,  on  November  25,  1666,  upon  the  Consecration  of  the 
Right  Rev.  Father  in  God,  Dr.  John  Dolben,  Lord  Bishop  of  Rochester. 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY. 

TO  THE  RIGHT  REV.  FATHER  IN  GOD 

JOHN,  LORD  BISHOP  OF  ROCHESTER, 

DEAN  OF  THE  CATHEDRAL  CHURCH  OF  WESTMINSTER,  AND  CLERK  OF  THE  CLOSET  TO 

HIS  MAJESTY. 

My  Lord, 

Though  the  interposal  of  my  lord  of  Canterbury's  command  for 
the  publication  of  this  mean  discourse,  may  seem  so  far  to  determine, 
as  even  to  take  away  my  choice ;  yet  I  must  own  it  to  the  world,  that 
it  is  solely  and  entirely  my  own  inclination,  seconded  by  my  obliga- 
tions to  your  lordship,  that  makes  this,  that  was  so  lately  an  humble 
attendant  upon  your  lordship's  consecration,  now  ambitious  to  conse- 
crate itself  with  your  lordship's  name.  It  was  my  honour  to  have 
lived  in  the  same  college  with  your  lordship,  and  now  to  belong  to 
the  same  cathedral,  where  at  present  you  credit  the  church  as  much 
by  your  government,  as  you  did  the  school  formerly  by  your  wit. 
Your  lordship  even  then  grew  up  into  a  constant  superiority  above 
others ;  and  all  your  after  greatness  seems  but  a  paraphrase  upon 
those  promising  beginnings :  for  whatsoever  you  are,  or  shall  be, 
has  been  but  an  easy  prognostic  from  what  you  were.  It  is  your 
iordship's  unhappiness  to  be  cast  upon  an  age  in  which  the  Church 
is  in  its  wane ;  and  if  you  do  not  those  glorious  things  that  our  Eng- 
lish prelates  did  two  or  three  hundred  years  since,  it  is  not  because 
your  lordship  is  at  all  less  than  they,  but  because  the  times  are  worse 
Vol.  L— 10  G  73 


74 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY. 


Witness  those  magnificent  buildings  in  Christ  Church  in  Oxford, 
begun  and  carried  on  by  your  lordship,  when  by  your  place  you 
governed,  and  by  your  wisdom  increased  the  treasure  of  that  college: 
and  which  must  eternally  set  your  fame  above  the  reach  of  envy  and 
detraction.  These  great  structures  you  attempted,  at  a  time  when  you 
returned  poor  and  bare,  to  a  college  as  bare,  after  a  long  persecution, 
and  before  you  had  laid  so  much  as  one  stone  in  the  repairs  of  your 
own  fortunes :  by  which  incomparably  high  and  generous  undertak- 
ing, you  have  shown  the  world  how  fit  a  person  you  were  to  build 
upon  Wolsey's  foundation ;  a  prelate  whose  great  designs  you  imi- 
tate, and  whose  mind  you  equal.  Briefly,  that  Christ  Church  stands 
so  high  above  ground,  and  that  the  church  of  Westminster  lies  not 
flat  upon  it,  is  your  lordship's  commendation.  And  therefore  your 
lordship  is  not  behindhand  with  the  church,  paying  it  as  much  credit 
and  support  as  you  receive  from  it ;  for  you  owe  your  promotion  to 
your  merit,  and,  I  am  sure,  your  merit  to  yourself.  All  men  court 
you,  not  so  much  because  a  great  person,  as  a  public  good.  For,  as 
a  friend,  there  is  none  so  hearty,  so  nobly  warm  and  active  to  make 
good  all  the  offices  of  that  endearing  relation :  as  a  patron,  none 
more  able  to  oblige  and  reward  your  dependents,  and,  which  is  the 
crowning  ornament  of  power,  none  more  willing.  And  lastly,  as  a 
diocesan,  you  are  like  even  to  outdo  yourself  in  all  other  capacities, 
and,  in  a  word,  to  exemplify  and  realize  every  word  of  the  following 
discourse ;  which  is  here  most  humbly  and  gratefully  presented  to 
your  lordship  by 

Your  Lordship's  most  obliged  servant, 

Robert  South. 

From  St.  James's,  Dec.  3,  1666. 


75 


SERMON  V. 

DUTIES  OF  THE  EPISCOPAL  FUNCTION. 
TITUS  II.  ult. 

TJiese  things  speak  and  exhort,  and  rebuke  with  all  authority.  Let 
no  man  despise  thee. 

It  may  possibly  be  expected,  that  the  very  taking  of  my  text 
out  of  this  epistle  to  Titus,  may  engage  me  in  a  discourse  about 
the  nature,  original,  and  divine  right  of  Episcopacy;  and  if  it 
should,  it  were  no  more  than  what  some  of  the  greatest  and  the 
learnedest  persons  in  the  world  (when  men  served  truth  instead 
of  design)  had  done  before  :  for  I  must  profess,  that  I  cannot 
look  upon  Titus  as  so  far  unbishoped  yet,  but  that  he  still  exhibits 
to  us  all  the  essentials  of  that  jurisdiction  which  to  this  day  is 
claimed  for  episcopal.  We  are  told  in  the  fifth  verse  of  the 
first  chapter,  "  that  he  was  left  in  Crete  to  set  things  in  order, 
and  to  ordain  elders  in  every  city which  text,  one  would  think, 
were  sufficiently  clear  and  full,  and  too  big  with  evidence  to  be 
perverted  :  but  when  we  have  seen  rebellion  commented  out  of 
the  thirteenth  of  the  Romans,  and  since  there  are  few  things  but 
admit  of  gloss  and  probability,  and  consequently  may  be  ex- 
pounded as  well  as  disputed  on  both  sides  ;  it  is  no  such  wonder, 
that  some  would  bear  the  world  in  hand,  that  the  apostle's  de- 
sign and  meaning  is  for  presbytery,  though  his  words  are  all  the 
time  for  episcopacy :  no  wonder,  I  say,  to  us  at  least,  who  have 
conversed  with  too  many  strange  unparalleled  actions,  occurrences, 
and  events,  now  to  wonder  at  any  thing  :  wonder  is  from  surprise  ; 
and  surprise  ceases  upon  experience. 

I  am  not  so  much  a  friend  to  the  stale  starched  formality  of 
preambles,  as  to  detain  so  great  an  audience  with  any  previous 
discourse,  extrinsic  to  the  subject  matter  and  design  of  the 
text;  and  therefore  I  shall  fall  directly  upon  the  words,  which 
run  in  the  form  of  an  exhortation,  though  in  appearance  a  very 
strange  one  ;  for  the  matter  of  an  exhortation  should  be  some- 
thing naturally  in  the  power  of  him  to  whom  the  exhortation  is 
directed  :  for  no  man  exhorts  another  to  be  strong,  beautiful, 
witty,  or  the  like  ;  these  are  the  felicities  of  some  conditions, 
the  object  of  more  wishes,  but  the  effects  of  no  man's  choice. 
Nor  seems  there  any  greater  reason  for  the  apostle's  exhorting 


76 


DR.  SOUTH' S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  V. 


Titus,  "  that  no  man  should  despise  him  ;"  for  how  could  another 
man's  action  be  his  duty  ?  Was  it  in  his  power  that  men  should 
not  be  wicked  and  injurious  ?  And  if  such  persons  would  de- 
spise him,  could  any  thing  pass  an  obligation  upon  him  not  to 
be  despised  ?  No,  this  cannot  be  the  meaning ;  and  therefore  it 
is  clear  that  the  exhortation  lies  not  against  the  action  itself, 
which  is  only  in  the  despiser's  power,  but  against  the  just  occa- 
sion of  it,  which  is  in  the  will  and  power  of  him  that  is  despised. 
It  was  not  in  Titus's  power  that  men  should  not  despise  him,  but 
it  was  in  his  power  to  bereave  them  of  all  just  cause  of  doing 
so  ;  it  was  not  in  his  power  not  to  be  derided,  but  it  was  in  his 
power  not  to  be  ridiculous. 

In  all  this  epistle  it  is  evident  that  St.  Paul  looks  upon  Titus 
as  advanced  to  the  dignity  of  a  prime  ruler  of  the  church,  and 
intrusted  with  a  large  diocese,  containing  many  particular  churches 
under  the  immediate  government  of  their  respective  elders  ;  and 
those  deriving  authority  from  his  ordination,  as  was  specified 
in  the  fifth  verse  of  the  first  chapter.  And  now  looking  upon 
Titus  under  this  qualification,  he  addresses  a  long  advice  and 
instruction  to  him,  for  the  discharge  of  so  important  a  function, 
all  along  the  first  and  second  chapters  ;  but  sums  up  all  in  the 
last  verse,  which  is  the  subject  of  the  ensuing  discourse,  a/id 
contains  in  it  these  two  things  : 

I;  An  account  of  the  duties  of  his  place  or  office. 

II.  Of  the  means  to  facilitate  and  make  effectual  their  exe- 
cution. 

I.  The  duties  of  his  place  were  two.  1.  To  teach.  2.  To 
rule.  Both  comprised  in  these  words ;  "  These  things  speak  and 
exhort,  and  rebuke  with  all  authority." 

And  then  the  means,  the  only  means  to  make  him  successful, 
bright,  and  victorious  in  the  performance  of  these  great  works, 
was  to  be  above  contempt,  to  shine,  like  the  Baptist,  with  a  clear 
and  a  triumphant  light.  In  a  word,  it  is  every  bishop's  duty  to 
teach  and  to  govern  ;  and  his  way  to  do  it,  is,  "  not  to  be  de- 
spised." 

We  will  discourse  of  each  respectively  in  their  order. 

1.  And  first,  for  the  first  branch  of  the  great  work  incumbent 
upon  a  church  ruler,  which  is  to  teach :  a  work  that  none  is  too 
great  or  too  high  for.  It  is  a  work  of  charity,  and  charity  is 
the  work  of  heaven,  which  is  always  laying  itself  out  upon  the 
needy  and  the  impotent:  nay,  and  it  is  a  work  of  the  highest 
and  the  noblest  charity ;  for  he  that  teacheth  another,  gives  an 
alms  to  his  soul :  he  clothes  the  nakedness  of  his  understanding, 
and  relieves  the  wants  of  his  impoverished  reason.  He  indeed 
that  governs  well,  leads  the  blind  ;  but  he  that  teaches,  gives  him 
eyes  ;  and  it  is  a  glorious  thing  to  have  been  the  repairer  of  a 
decayed  intellect,  and  a  subworker  to  grace,  in  freeing  it  from 


THE  DUTIES  OF  THE  EPISCOPAL  FUNCTION. 


77 


some  of  the  inconveniencies  of  original  sin.  It  is  a  benefaction 
that  gives  a  man  a  kind  of  prerogative ;  for  even  in  the  common 
dialect  of  the  world  every  teacher  is  called  a  master.  It  is  the 
property  of  instruction  to  descend,  and  upon  that  very  account  it 
supposes  him  that  instructs,  the  superior,  or  at  least  makes  him  so. 

To  say  a  man  is  advanced  too  high  to  condescend  to  teach  the 
ignorant,  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  the  sun  is  in  too  high  a  place  to 
shine  upon  what  is  below  it.  The  sun  is  said  "  to  rule  the  day," 
and  "  the  moon  to  rule  the  night ;"  but  do  they  not  rule  them  only 
by  enlightening  them  ?  Doctrine  is  that  which  must  prepare  men 
for  discipline  ;  and  men  never  go  on  so  cheerfully,  as  when  they 
see  where  they  go. 

Nor  is  the  dulness  of  the  scholar  to  extinguish,  but  rather  to 
inflame  the  charity  of  the  teacher.  For  since  it  is  not  in  men  as 
in  vessels,  that  the  smallest  capacity  is  the  soonest  filled ;  where 
the  labour  is  doubled,  the  value  of  the  work  is  enhanced  ;  for  it  is 
a  sowing  where  a  man  never  expects  to  reap  any  thing  but  the 
comfort  and  conscience  of  having  done  virtuously.  And  yet  we 
know,  moreover,  that  God  sometimes  converts  even  the  dull  and 
the  slow,  turning  "  very  stones  into  sons  of  Abraham ;"  where, 
besides  that  the  difficulty  of  the  conquest  advances  the  trophy  of  the 
conqueror,  it  often  falls  out,  that  the  backward  learner  makes 
amends  another  way,  recompensing  sure  for  sudden,  expiating  his 
want  of  docility  with  a  deeper  and  a  more  rooted  retention  ;  which 
alone  were  argument  sufficient  to  enforce  the  apostle's  injunction  of 
being  "  instant  in  season  and  out  of  season,"  even  upon  the  highest 
and  most  exalted  ruler  in  the  church.  He  that  sits  in  Moses'  chair, 
sits  there  to  instruct,  as  well  as  to  rule :  and  a  general's  office 
engages  him  to  lead  as  well  as  to  command  his  army.  In  the  first 
of  Ecclesiastes,  Solomon  represents  himself  both  as  "  preacher"  and 
"  king  of  Israel :"  and  every  soul  that  a  bishop  gains  is  a  new 
accession  to  the  extent  of  his  power ;  he  preaches  his  jurisdiction 
wider,  and  enlarges  his  spiritual  diocese,  as  he  enlarges  men's 
apprehensions. 

The  teaching  part  indeed  of  a  Romish  bishop  is  easy  enough, 
whose  grand  business  is  only  to  teach  men  to  be  ignorant,  to 
instruct  them  how  to  know  nothing,  or,  which  is  all  one,  to  know 
upon  trust,  to  believe  implicitly ;  and,  in  a  word,  to  see  with 
other  men's  eyes,  till  they  come  to  be  lost  in  their  own  souls. 
But  our  religion  is  a  religion  that  dares  to  be  understood,  that 
oners  itself  to  the  search  of  the  inquisitive,  to  the  inspection  of 
the  severest  and  the  most  awakened  reason :  for  being  secure  of 
her  substantial  truth  and  purity,  she  knows,  that  for  her  to  be 
seen  and  looked  into,  is  to  be  embraced  and  admired.  As  there 
needs  no  greater  argument  for  men  to  love  the  light  than  to  see 
it,  it  needs  no  legends,  no  service  in  an  unknown  tongue,  no 
inquisition  against  scripture,  no  purging  out  the  heart  and  sense 
of  authors,  no  altering  or  bribing  the  voice  of  antiquity  to  speak 

g  2 


78 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  V. 


for  it ;  it  needs  none  of  all  these  laborious  artifices  of  ignorance ; 
none  of  all  these  cloaks  and  coverings.  The  Romish  faith  indeed 
must  be  covered,  or  it  cannot  be  kept  warm :  and  their  clergy 
deal  with  their  religion,  as  with  a  great  crime ;  if  it  is  discovered, 
they  are  undone.  But  there  is  no  bishop  of  the  church  of 
England  but  accounts  it  his  interest,  as  well  as  his  duty,  to  comply 
with  this  precept  of  the  apostle  Paul  to  Titus,  "  These  things  teach 
and  exhort." 

Now  this  teaching  may  be  effected  two  ways : 

(1.)  Immediately  by  himself.    (2.)  Mediately  by  others. 

And  first,  immediately  by  himself.  Where  God  gives  a  talent, 
the  episcopal  robe  can  be  no  napkin  to  hide  it  in.  Change  of 
condition  changes  not  the  abilities  of  nature,  but  makes  them 
more  illustrious  in  their  exercise ;  and  the  episcopal  dignity, 
added  to  a  good  preaching  faculty,  is  like  the  erecting  of  a  stately 
fountain  upon  a  spring,  which  still,  for  all  that,  remains  as  much  a 
spring  as  it  was  before,  and  flows  as  plentifully,  only  it  flows  with 
the  circumstance  of  greater  state  and  magnificence.  Height  of 
place  is  intended  only  to  stamp  the  endowments  of  a  private  condi- 
tion with  lustre  and  authority :  and  thanks  be  to  God,  neither  the 
church's  professed  enemies,  nor  her  pretended  friends,  have  any 
cause  to  asperse  her  in  this  respect,  as  having  over  her  such 
bishops  as  are  able  to  silence  the  factious  no  less  by  their  preaching 
than  by  their  authority. 

But  then,  on  the  other  hand,  let  me  add  also,  that  this  is  not  so 
absolutely  necessary  as  to  be  of  the  vital  constitution  of  this  func- 
tion. He  may  teach  his  diocese,  who  ceases  to  be  able  to  preach 
to  it ;  for  he  may  do  it  by  appointing  teachers,  and  by  a  vigilant 
exacting  from  them  the  care  and  the  instruction  of  their  respective 
flocks.  He  is  the  spiritual  father  of  his  diocese  ;  and  a  father  may 
see  his  children  taught,  though  he  himself  does  not  turn  school- 
master. It  is  not  the  gift  of  every  person,  nor  of  every  age,  to 
harangue  the  multitude,  to  voice  it  high  and  loud,  et  dominari  in 
concionibus.  And  since  experience  fits  for  government,  and  age 
usually  brings  experience,  perhaps  the  most  governing  years  are 
the  least  preaching  years. 

(2.)  In  the  second  place,  therefore,  there  is  a  teaching  mediately, 
by  the  subordinate  ministration  of  others ;  in  which,  since  the 
action  of  the  instrumental  agent  is,  upon  all  grounds  of  reason, 
to  be  ascribed  to  the  principal,  he,  who  ordains  and  furnishes  all 
his  churches  with  able  preachers,  is  a  universal  teacher ;  he  •  in- 
structs where  he  cannot  be  present ;  he  speaks  in  every  mouth  of 
his  diocese,  and  every  congregation  of  it  every  Sunday  feels  his 
influence,  though  it  hears  not  his  voice.  That  master  deprives 
not  his  family  of  their  food,  who  orders  a  faithful  steward  to  dis- 
pense it.  Teaching  is  not  a  flow  of  words,  nor  the  draining  of 
an  hour-glass,  but  an  effectual  procuring,  that  a  man  comes  to 
know  something  which  he  knew  not  before,  or  to  know  it  better : 


THE  DUTIES  OF  THE  EPISCOPAL  FUNCTION. 


79 


and  therefore  eloquence  and  ability  of  speech  is  to  a  church 
governor,  as  Tully  said  it  was  to  a  philosopher,  Si  qfferatur,  non 
repudi'inda ;  si  absit,  non  magnopere  desideranda :  and  to  find  fault 
with  such  a  one  for  not  being  a  popular  speaker,  is  to  blame  a 
painter  for  not  being  a  good  musician. 

To  teach  indeed  must  be  confessed  to  be  his  duty;  but  then 
there  is  a  teaching  by  example,  by  authority,  by  restraining  se- 
ducers, and  so  removing  the  hinderances  of  knowledge :  and  a 
bishop  does  his  church,  his  prince  and  country,  more  service  by 
ruling  other  men's  tongues,  than  he  can  by  employing  his  own. 
And  thus  much  for  the  first  branch  of  the  great  work  belonging  to 
a  pastor  of  a  church,  which  was  to  teach  and  to  exhort. 

2.  The  second  is  to  rule,  expressed  in  these  words,  "  Rebuke 
with  all  authority."  By  which  I  doubt  not  but  the  apostle  princi- 
pally intends  church  censures ;  and  so  the  words  are  a  metonyme 
of  the  part  for  the  whole,  giving  an  instance  in  ecclesiastical  cen- 
sures, instead  of  all  other  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction :  a  jurisdiction, 
which,  in  the  essentials  of  it,  is  as  old  as  Christianity  ;  and  even  in 
those  circumstantial  additions  of  secular  encouragement,  with  which 
the  piety  and  wisdom  of  Christian  princes  always  thought  necessary 
to  support  it  against  the  encroachments  of  the  injurious  world,  much 
older  and  more  venerable  than  any  constitution  that  has  divested 
the  church  of  it. 

But  to  speak  directly  to  the  thing  before  us :  we  see  here  the 
great  apostle  employing  the  utmost  of  his  authority  in  commanding 
Titus  to  use  his.  And  what  he  said  to  him,  he  says  to  every 
Christian  bishop  after  him,  "  Rebuke  with  all  authority."  This 
authority  is  a  spiritual  sword  put  into  the  hands  of  every  church 
ruler ;  and  God  put  not  this  sword  into  his  hands  with  an  intent 
that  he  should  keep  it  there  for  no  other  purpose,  but  only  for 
fashion's  sake,  as  men  use  to  wear  one  by  their  sides.  Government 
is  an  art  above  the  attainment  of  an  ordinary  genius,  and  requires 
a  wider,  a  larger,  and  a  more  comprehending  soul  them  God  has 
put  into  every  body.  The  spirit  which  animates  and  acts  the 
universe,  is  a  spirit  of  government ;  and  that  ruler  that  is  pos- 
sessed of  it,  is  the  substitute  and  vicegerent  of  Providence,  whether 
in  church  or  state  ;  every  bishop  is  God's  curate.  Now  the  nature 
of  government  contains  in  it  these  three  parts : 

(1.)  An  exaction  of  duty  from  the  persons  placed  under  it.  (2.) 
A  protection  of  them  in  the  performance  of  their  duty.  (3.)  Coer- 
cion and  animadversion  upon  such  as  neglect  it.  All  which  are,  in 
their  proportion,  ingredients  of  that  government  which  we  call 
Ecclesiastical. 

(1.)  And  first,  it  implies  exaction  of  duty  from  the  persons 
placed  under  it:  for  it  is  both  to  be  confessed  and  lamented, 
that  men  are  not  so  ready  to  oiler  it,  where  it  is  not  exacted : 
otherwise,  what  means  the  service  of  the  church  so  imperfectly 
and  by  halves  read  over,  and  that  by  many  who  profess  a  con- 


80 


DR.  SOUTh's  SERMONS.  [SERM.  V. 


formity  to  the  rules  of  the  church  ?  What  makes  them  mince  and 
mangle  that  in  their  practice,  which  they  could  swallow  whole  in 
their  subscriptions?  Why  are  the  public  prayers  curtailed  and  left 
out,  prayers  composed  with  sobriety,  and  enjoined  with  authority, 
only  to  make  the  more  room  for  a  long,  crude,  impertinent,  upstart 
harangue  before  the  sermon  ? 

Such  persons  seem  to  conform  (the  signification  of  which  word 
they  never  make  good)  only  that  they  may  despise  the  church's 
injunctions  under  the  church's  wing,  and  contemn  authority  within 
the  protection  of  the  laws.  Duty  is  but  another  English  word 
for  debt ;  and  God  knows,  that  it  is  well  if  men  pay  their  debts 
when  they  are  called  upon.  But  if  governors  do  not  remind  men 
of,  and  call  them  to  obedience,  they  will  find  that  it  will  never 
come  as  a  free-will  offering,  no,  not  from  many  who  even  serve  at 
the  altar. 

(2.)  Government  imports  a  protection  and  encouragement  of  the 
persons  under  it,  in  the  discharge  of  their  duty.  It  is  not  for  a 
magistrate  to  frown  upon  and  browbeat  those  who  are  hearty  and 
exact  in  the  management  of  their  ministry;  and  with  a  grave, 
significant  nod,  to  call  a  well  regulated  and  resolved  zeal,  want  of 
prudence  and  moderation.  Such  discouraging  of  men  in  the  ways 
of  an  active  conformity  to  the  church's  rules,  is  that  which  will 
crack  the  sinews  of  government ;  for  it  weakens  the  hands  and 
damps  the  spirits  of  the  obedient ;  and  if  only  scorn  and  rebuke 
shall  attend  men  for  asserting  the  church's  dignity,  and  taxing  the 
murder  of  kings,  and  the  like  ;  many  will  choose  rather  to  neglect 
their  duty  safely  and  credibly,  than  to  get  a  broken  pate  in  the 
church's  service,  only  to  be  rewarded  with  that  which  shall  break 
their  hearts  too. 

(3.)  The  third  thing  implied  in  government,  is  coercion  and 
animadversion  upon  such  as  neglect  their  duty:  without  which 
coercive  power,  all  government  is  but  toothless  and  precarious,  and 
does  not  so  much  command  as  beg  obedience.  Nothing,  I  confess, 
is  more  becoming  a  Christian,  of  what  degree  soever,  than  meek- 
ness, candour,  and  condescension ;  but  they  are  virtues  that  have 
their  proper  sphere  and  season  to  act  and  show  themselves  in,  and 
consequently  not  to  interfere  with  others,  different  indeed  in  their 
nature,  but  altogether  as  necessary  in  their  use.  And  when  an 
insolent  despiser  of  discipline,  nurtured  into  impudence  and  con- 
tempt of  all  order,  by  a  long  risk  of  license  and  rebellion,  shall 
appear  before  a  church  governor,  severity  and  resolution  are  that 
governor's  virtues,  and  justice  itself  is  his  mercy;  for  by  making 
such  a  one  an  example  (as  much  as  in  him  lies)  he  will  either  cure 
him,  or  at  least,  preserve  others. 

Were  indeed  the  consciences  of  men  as  they  should  be,  the 
censures  of  the  church  might  be  a  sufficient  coercion  upon  them  ; 
but  being,  as  most  of  them  now-a-days  are,  hell  and  damnation 
proof,  her  bare  anathemas  fall  but  like  so  many  bruta  fulmina 


THE  DUTIES  OF  THE  EPISCOPAL  FUNCTION. 


81 


upon  the  obstinate  and  schismatical  ;  who  are  like  to  think  them- 
selves shrewdly  hurt,  forsooth,  by  being  cut  off  from  that  body, 
which  they  choose  not  to  be  of;  and  so  being  punished  into  a 
quiet  enjoyment  of  their  beloved  separation.  Some  will  by  no 
means  allow  the  church  any  further  power  than  only  to  exhort 
and  to  advise,  and  this  but  with  a  proviso  too,  that  it  extends  not 
to  such  as  think  themselves  too  wise  and  too  great  to  be  advised  ; 
according  to  the  hypothesis  of  which  persons,  the  authority  of 
the  church,  and  the  obliging  force  of  all  church  sanctions,  can 
bespeak  men  only  thus :  4  These  and  these  things  it  is  your  duty 
to  do,  and  if  you  will  not  do  them,  you  may  as  well  let  them 
alone.'  A  strict  and  efficacious  constitution  indeed,  which  invests 
the  church  with  no  power  at  all,  but  where  men  will  be  so  very 
civil  as  to  obey  it,  and  so  at  the  same  time  pay  it  a  duty,  and  do 
it  a  courtesy  too. 

But  when,  in  the  judgment  of  some  men,  the  spiritual  function, 
as  such,  must  render  a  churchman,  though  otherwise  never  so 
discreet  and  qualified,  yet  merely  oecause  he  is  a  churchman, 
unfit  to  be  intrusted  by  his  prince  with  a  share  of  that  power 
and  jurisdiction,  which  in  many  circumstances  his  prince  has 
judged  but  too  necessary  to  secure  the  affairs  and  dignity  of  the 
church  ;  and  which  every  thriving  grazier  can  think  himself  but 
ill  dealt  with,  if  within  his  own  country  he  is  not  mounted  to  ; 
it  is  a  sign,  that  such  discontented  persons  intend  not  that  religion 
shall  advise  them  upon  any  other  terms,  than  that  they  may  ride 
and  govern  their  religion. 

But  surely  all  our  kings  and  our  parliaments  understood  well 
enough  what  they  did,  when  they  thought  fit  to  prop  and  fortify 
the  spiritual  order  with  some  power  that  was  temporal ;  and  such 
is  the  present  state  of  the  world,  in  the  judgment  of  any  observ- 
ing eye,  that  if  the  bishop  has  no  other  defensatives  but  excom- 
munication, no  other  power  but  that  of  the  keys,  he  may,  for 
any  notable  effect  that  he  is  like  to  do  upon  the  factious  and 
contumacious,  surrender  up  his  pastoral  staff,  shut  up  the  church, 
and  put  those  keys  under  the  door. 

And  thus  I  have  endeavoured  to  show  the  three  things  in- 
cluded in  the  general  nature  of  government;  but  to  prescribe 
the  manner  of  it  in  particular,  is  neither  in  my  power  nor  incli- 
nation :  only  I  suppose  the  common  theory  and  speculation  of 
things  is  free  and  open  to  any  one  whom  God  has  sent  into  the 
world  with  some  ability  to  contemplate,  and  by  continuing  him 
in  the  world,  gives  him  also  opportunity.  In  all  that  has  been 
said,  I  do  not  in  the  least  pretend  to  advise  or  chalk  out  rules  to 
ray  superiors ;  for  some  men  cannot  be  fools  with  so  good  accept- 
ance as  others.  But  whosoever  is  called  to  speak  upon  a  certain 
occasion,  may,  I  conceive,  without  offence,  take  any  text  suitable 
to  that  occasion,  and  having  taken  it  may,  or  at  least  ought,  to 
speak  suitably  to  that  text. 

Vol.  I.— il 


82 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  V. 


II.  I  proceed  now  to  the  second  thing  proposed  from  the 
words  ;  which  is  the  means  assigned  for  the  discharge  of  the  duties 
mentioned,  and  exhibited  under  this  one  short  prescription,  "  Let 
no  man  despise  thee."    In  the  handling  of  which  I  shall  show, 

I,  The  ill  effects  and  destructive  influence  that  contempt  has 
upon  government.  2.  The  groundless  causes  upon  which  church 
rulers  are  frequently  despised.  3.  And  lastly,  the  just  causes 
that  would  render  them,  or  indeed  any  other  rulers,  worthy  to 
be  despised.  All  which  being  clearly  made  out,  and  impartially 
laid  before  our  eyes,  it  will  be  easy  and  obvious  for  every  one, 
by  avoiding  the  evil  so  marked  out,  to  answer  and  come  up  to 
the  apostle's  exhortation.  And, 

1.  We  will  discourse  of  contempt,  and  the  malign  hostile  in- 
fluence it  has  upon  government.  As  for  the  thing  itself,  every 
man's  experience  will  inform  him,  that  there  is  no  action  in  the 
behaviour  of  one  man  towards  another,  of  which  human  nature 
is  more  impatient  than  of  contempt,  it  being  a  thing  made  up  of 
those  two  ingredients,  an  undervaluing  of  a  man  upon  a  belief 
of  his  utter  uselessness  and  inability,  and  a  spiteful  endeavour  to 
engage  the  rest  of  the  world  in  the  same  belief  and  slight  esteem 
of  him.  So  that  the  immediate  design  of  contempt,  is  the  shame 
of  the  person  contemned ;  and  shame  is  a  banishment  of  him 
from  the  good  opinion  of  the  world,  which  every  man  most 
earnestly  desires,  both  upon  a  principle  of  nature  and  of  interest  ; 
for  it  is  natural  to  all  men  to  affect  a  good  name  ;  and  he  that 
despises  a  man,  libels  him  in  his  thoughts,  reviles  and  traduces 
him  in  his  judgment.  And  there  is  also  interest  in  the  case  ;  for 
a  desire  to  be  well  thought  of,  directly  resolves  itself  into  that 
owned  and  mighty  principle  of  self-preservation ;  forasmuch  as 
thoughts  are  the  first  wheels  and  motives  of  action,  and  there  is 
no  long  passage  from  one  to  the  other.  He  that  thinks  a  man 
to  the  ground,  will  quickly  endeavour  to  lay  him  there  ;  for 
while  he  despises  him,  he  arraigns  and  condemns  him  in  his  heart ; 
and  the  after  bitterness  and  cruelties  of  his  practices,  are  but 
the  executioners  of  the  sentence  passed  before  upon  him  by  his 
judgment.  Contempt,  like  the  planet  Saturn,  has  first  an  ill 
aspect,  and  then  a  destroying  influence. 

By  all  which,  I  suppose,  it  is  sufficiently  proved,  how  noxious 
it  must  needs  be  to  every  governor :  for,  can  a  man  respect  the 
person  whom  he  despises?  And  can  there  be  obedience,  where 
there  is  not  so  much  as  respect  ?  Will  the  knee  bend,  while  the 
heart  insults?  and  the  actions  submit,  while  the  apprehensions 
rebel  ?  And  therefore  the  most  experienced  disturbers  and  un- 
derminers  of  government  have  always  laid  their  first  train  in 
contempt,  endeavouring  to  blow  it  up  in  the  judgment  and  esteem 
of  the  subject :  and  was  not  this  method  observed  in  the  late 
most  flourishing  and  successful  rebellion?  For,  how  studiously 
did  they  lay  about  them,  both  from  the  pulpit  and  the  press,  to 


THE  DUTIES  OF  THE  EPISCOPAL  FUNCTION.  83 


cast  a  slur  upon  the  king's  person,  and  to  bring  his  governing 
abilities  under  a  disrepute.  And  then,  after  they  had  sufficiently 
blasted  him  in  his  personal  capacity,  they  found  it  easy  work  to 
dash  and  overthrow  him  in  his  political. 

Reputation  is  power,  and  consequently  to  despise  is  to  weaken : 
for  where  there  is  contempt,  there  can  be  no  awe ;  and  where 
there  is  no  awe,  there  will  be  no  subjection  ;  and  if  there  is  no 
subjection,  it  is  impossible,  without  the  help  of  the  former  dis- 
tinction of  a  politic  capacity,  to  imagine  how  a  prince  can 
be  a  governor.  He  that  makes  his  prince  despised  and  under- 
valued, blows  a  trumpet  against  him  in  men's  breasts,  beats  him 
out  of  his  subjects'  hearts,  and  fights  him  out  of  their  affections ; 
and  after  this,  he  may  easily  strip  him  of  his  other  garrisons, 
having  already  dispossessed  him  of  his  strongest,  by  dismantling 
him  of  his  honour,  and  seizing  his  reputation. 

Nor  is  what  has  been  said  of  princes  less  true  of  all  other 
governors,  from  highest  to  lowest,  from  him  that  heads  an  army 
to  him  that  is  master  of  a  family,  or  of  one  single  servant ;  the 
formal  reason  of  a  thing  equally  extending  itself  to  every  par- 
ticular of  the  same  kind.  It  is  a  proposition  of  eternal  verity, 
that  none  can  govern  while  he  is  despised.  We  may  as  well 
imagine  that  there  may  be  a  king  without  majesty,  a  supreme 
without  sovereignty.  It  is  a  paradox,  and  a  direct  contradiction 
in  practice ;  for  where  contempt  takes  place,  the  very  causes  and 
capacities  of  government  cease. 

Men  are  so  far  from  being  governed  by  a  despised  person,  that 
they  will  not  so  much  as  be  taught  by  him.  Truth  itself  shall 
lose  its  credit,  if  delivered  by  a  person  that  has  none.  As  on  the 
contrary,  be  but  a  person  in  vogue  and  credit  with  the  multitude, 
he  shall  be  able  to  commend  and  set  off  whatsoever  he  says,  to 
authorize  any  nonsense,  and  to  make  popular,  rambling,  incohe- 
rent stuff  (seasoned  with  twang  and  tautology),  pass  for  high  rhe- 
toric, and  moving  preaching ;  such  indeed  as  a  zealous  tradesman 
would  even  live  and  die  under.  And  now,  I  suppose  it  is  no  ill 
topic  of  argumentation,  to  show  the  prevalence  of  contempt,  by 
the  contrary  influences  of  respect ;  which  thus,  as  it  were,  dubs 
every  little,  petit,  admired  person,  lord  and  commander  of  all  his 
admirers.  And  certain  it  is,  that  the  ecclesiastical,  as  well  as  the 
civil  governor,  has  cause  to  pursue  the  same  methods  of  securing 
and  confirming  himself,  the  grounds  and  means  of  government 
being  founded  upon  the  same  bottom  of  nature  in  both,  though 
the  circumstances  and  relative  considerations  of  the  persons  may 
differ.  And  I  have  nothing  to  say  more  upon  this  head,  but  that 
if  churchmen  are  called  upon  to  discharge  the  parts  of  governors, 
they  may,  with  the  highest  reason,  expect  those  supports  and 
helps  that  are  indispensably  requisite  thereunto  ;  and  that  those 
men  are  but  trepanned,  who  are  called  to  govern,  being  invested 
with  authority,  but  bereaved  of  power :  which  according  to  a 


84 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  V. 


true  and  plain  estimate  of  things,  is  nothing  else  but  to  mock 
and  betray  them  into  a  splendid  and  magisterial  way  of  being 
ridiculous.  And  thus  much  for  the  ill  effects  and  destructive 
influence  that  contempt  has  upon  government. 

2.  I  pass  now  to  the  second  thing :  which  is  to  show  the 
groundless  causes  upon  which  church  rulers  are  frequently 
despised. 

Concerning  which  I  shall  premise  this,  that  nothing  can  be  a 
reasonable  ground  of  despising  a  man,  but  some  fault  or  other 
chargeable  upon  him ;  and  nothing  can  be  a  fault  that  is  not 
naturally  in  a  man's  power  to  prevent ;  otherwise,  it  is  a  man's 
unhappiness,  his  mischance,  or  calamity,  but  not  his  fault.  No- 
thing can  justly  be  despised,  that  cannot  justly  be  blamed  :  and 
it  is  a  most  certain  rule  in  reason  and  moral  philosophy,  that 
where  there  is  no  choice,  there  can  be  no  blame. 

This  premised,  we  may  take  notice  of  two  usual  grounds  of 
the  contempt  men  cast  upon  the  clergy,  and  yet  for  which  no 
man  ought  to  think  himself  at  all  the  more  worthy  to  be  con- 
temned. 

(1.)  The  first  is  their  very  profession  itself;  concerning  which 
it  is  a  sad,  but  an  experimented  truth,  that  the  names  derived 
from  it,  in  the  refined  language  of  the  present  age,  are  made  but 
the  appellatives  of  scorn.  This  is  not  charged  universally  upon 
all ;  but  experience  will  affirm,  or  rather  proclaim  it  of  much  the 
greater  part  of  the  world ;  and  men  must  persuade  us  that  we 
have  lost  our  hearing  and  our  common  sense,  before  we  can  be- 
lieve the  contrary.  But  surely  the  bottom  and  foundation  of  this 
behaviour  towards  persons  set  apart  for  the  service  of  God,  that 
this  very  relation  should  entitle  them  to  such  a  peculiar  scorn, 
can  be  nothing  else  but  atheism,  the  growing  rampant  sin  of  the 
times. 

For  call  a  man  oppressor,  griping,  covetous,  or  over-reaching 
person,  and  the  word  indeed,  being  ill  befriended  by  custom,  per- 
haps sounds  not  well ;  but  generally,  in  the  apprehension  of  the 
hearer,  it  signifies  no  more  than  that  such  a  one  is  a  wise,  and  a 
thriving,  or,  in  the  common  phrase,  a  notable  man  ;  which  will 
certainly  procure  him  a  respect :  and  say  of  another,  that  he  is 
an  epicure,  a  loose,  or  a  vicious  man,  and  it  leaves  in  men  no 
other  opinion  of  him,  than  that  he  is  a  merry,  pleasant,  and  a 
genteel  person :  and  that  he  that  taxes  him  is  but  a  pedant,  an 
unexperienced  and  a  morose  fellow ;  one  that  does  not  know  men, 
nor  understand  what  it  is  to  eat  and  drink  well.  But  call  a  man 
priest  or  parson,  and  you  set  him,  in  some  men's  esteem,  ten 
degrees  below  his  own  servant. 

But  let  us  not  be  discouraged  or  displeased,  either  with  our- 
selves or  our  profession,  upon  this  account.  Let  the  virtuosos 
mock,  insult,  and  despise  on  ;  yet,  after  all,  they  shall  never  be 
able  to  droll  away  the  nature  of  things,  to  trample  a  pearl  into  a 


THE   DUTIES  OF  THE  EPISCOPAL  FUNCTION. 


85 


pebble,  nor  to  make  sacred  things  contemptible ;  any  more  than 
themselves,  by  such  speeches,  honourable. 

(2.)  Another  groundless  cause  of  some  men's  despising  the 
governors  of  our  church,  is  their  loss  of  that  former  grandeur 
and  privilege  that  they  enjoyed.  But  it  is  no  real  disgrace  to  the 
church  merely  to  lose  her  privileges,  but  to  forfeit  them  by  her 
fault  or  misdemeanor  of  which  she  is  not  conscious.  Whatever 
she  enjoyed  in  this  kind,  she  readily  acknowledges  to  have  streamed 
from  the  royal  munificence,  and  the  favours  of  the  civil  power 
shining  upon  the  spiritual ;  which  favours  the  same  power  may 
retract  and  gather  back  into  itself,  when  it  pleases.  And  we  envy 
not  the  greatness  and  lustre  of  the  Romish  clergy ;  neither  their 
scarlet  gowns  nor  their  scarlet  sins.  If  our  church  cannot  be 
great  she  can  be  humble,  which  is  better,  and  content  to  be  re- 
formed into  as  low  a  condition  as  men  for  their  own  private  ad- 
vantage would  have  her ;  who  wisely  tell  her,  that  it  is  best  and 
safest  for  her  to  be  without  any  power  or  temporal  advantage ;  like 
the  good  physician,  who  out  of  tenderness  to  his  patient,  lest  he 
should  hurt  himself  by  drinking,  was  so  kind  as  to  rob  him  of 
his  silver  cup.  The  church  of  England  glories  in  nothing  more 
than  that  she  is  the  truest  friend  to  kings  and  to  kingly  govern- 
ment, of  any  other  church  in  the  world  ;  that  they  were  the  same 
hands  and  principles  that  took  the  crown  from  the  king's  head, 
and  the  mitre  from  the  bishops.  It  is  indeed  the  happiness  of 
some  professions  and  callings,  that  they  can  equally  square  them- 
selves to,  and  thrive  under  all  revolutions  of  government :  but 
the  clergy  of  England  neither  know  nor  affect  that  happiness,  and 
are  willing  to  be  despised  for  not  doing  so.  And  so  far  is  our 
church  from  encroaching  upon  the  civil  power,  as  some,  who  are 
back-friends  to  both,  would  maliciously  insinuate,  that,  were  it 
stripped  of  the  very  remainder  of  its  privileges,  and  made  as  like 
the  primitive  church  for  its  barrenness,  as  it  is  already  for  its  purity, 
it  could  cheerfully,  and,  what  is  more,  loyally,  want  all  such 
privileges ;  and,  in  the  want  of  them,  pray  heartily,  that  the  civil 
power  may  nourish  as  much,  and  stand  as  secure  from  the  assaults 
of  fanatic,  antimonarchical  principles  (grown  to  such  a  dreadful 
height  during  the  church's  late  confusions)  as  it  stood  while  the 
church  enjoyed  those  privileges.  And  thus  much  for  the  two 
groundless  causes  upon  which  church  rulers  are  frequently  despised ; 
I  descend  now  to  the 

3.  And  last  thing,  which  is  to  show  those  just  causes,  that  would 
render  them,  or  indeed  any  other  rulers,  worthy  to  be  despised. 
Many  might  be  assigned ;  but  I  shall  pitch  only  upon  four.  In 
discoursing  of  which,  rather  the  time,  than  the  subject,  will  force 
me  to  be  very  brief. 

(1.)  And  the  first  is  ignorance.  We  know  how  great  an  ab- 
surdity our  Saviour  accounted  it,  "for  the  blind  to  lead  the  blind  ;" 
and  to  put  him  that  cannot  so  much  as  see,  to  discharge  the  office 


86 


DR.  SOTJTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  V. 


of  a  watch.  Nothing  more  exposes  to  contempt  than  ignorance. 
"When  Samson's  eyes  were  out,  of  a  public  magistrate  he  was  made 
a  public  sport.  And  when  Eli  was  blind,  we  know  how  well  he 
governed  his  sons,  and  how  well  they  governed  the  church  under 
him.  But  now  the  blindness  of  the  understanding  is  greater 
and  more  scandalous ;  especially  in  such  a  seeing  age  as  ours, 
in  which  the  very  knowledge  of  former  times  passes  but  for  igno- 
rance in  a  better  dress ;  an  age  that  flies  at  all  learning,  and,  in- 
quires into  every  thing,  but  especially  into  faults  and  defects. 
Ignorance  indeed,  so  far  as  it  may  be  resolved  into  natural  inability, 
is,  as  to  men  at  least,  inculpable ;  and  consequently  not  the  object 
of  scorn,  but  pity  ;  but  in  a  governor  it  cannot  be  without  the 
conjunction  of  the  highest  impudence :  for  who  bid  such  a  one 
aspire  to  teach  and  to  govern  ?  A  blind  man  sitting  in  the  chimney 
corner  is  pardonable  enough,  but  sitting  at  the  helm  he  is  intole- 
rable. If  men  will  be  ignorant  and  illiterate,  let  them  be  so  in 
private,  and  to  themselves,  and  not  set  their  defects  in  a  high  place, 
to  make  them  visible  and  conspicuous.  If  owls  will  not  be  hooted 
at,  let  them  keep  close  within  the  tree,  and  not  perch  upon  the 
upper  boughs. 

(2.)  A  second  thing  that  makes  a  governor  justly  despised,  is 
viciousness  and  ill  morals.  Virtue  is  that  which  must  tip  the 
preacher's  tongue  and  the  ruler's  sceptre  with  authority:  and 
therefore  with  what  a  controlling  overpowering  force  did  our 
Saviour  tax  the  sins  of  the  Jews,  when  he  ushered  in  his  rebukes 
of  them  with  that  high  assertion  of  himself,  "  Who  is  there 
amongst  you  that  convinces  me  of  sin  ?"  Otherwise  we  may  easily 
guess  with  what  impatience  the  world  would  have  heard  an  in- 
cestuous Herod  discoursing  of  chastity,  a  Judas  condemning 
covetousness,  or  a  Pharisee  preaching  against  hypocrisy :  every 
word  must  have  recoiled  upon  the  speaker.  Guilt  is  that  which 
quells  the  courage  of  the  bold,  ties  the  tongue  of  the  eloquent,  and 
makes  greatness  itself  sneak  and  lurk,  and  behave  itself  poorly. 
For,  let  a  vicious  person  be  in  never  so  high  command,  yet  still  he 
will  be  looked  upon  but  as  one  great  vice,  empowered  to  correct 
and  chastise  others.  A  corrupt  governor  is  nothing  else  but  a 
reigning  sin :  and  a  sin  in  office  may  command  any  thing  but 
respect.  No  man  can  be  credited  by  his  place  or  power,  who  by 
his  virtue  does  not  first  credit  that. 

(3.)  A  third  thing  that  makes  a  governor  justly  despised,  is 
fearfulness  of,  and  mean  compliances  with  bold,  popular  offend- 
ers. Some  indeed  account  it  the  very  spirit  of  policy  and  pru- 
dence, where  men  refuse  to  come  up  to  a  law,  to  make  the  law 
come  down  to  them.  And  for  their  so  doing,  have  this  infallible 
recompence,  that  they  are  not  at  all  the  more  loved,  but  much 
the  less-  feared  ;  and,  which  is  a  sure  consequent  of  it,  accord- 
ingly respected.  But  believe  it,  it  is  a  resolute,  tenacious  ad- 
herence to  well  chosen  principles,  that  adds  glory  to  greatness, 


THE  DUTIES  OF  THE  EPISCOPAL  FUNCTION. 


87 


and  makes  the  face  of  a  governor  shine  in  the  eyes  of  those  that 
see  and  examine  his  actions.  Disobedience,  if  complied  with,  is 
infinitely  encroaching,  and  having  gained  one  degree  of  liberty 
upon  indulgence,  will  demand  another  upon  claim.  Every  vice 
interprets  a  connivance  an  approbation. 

Which  being  so,  is  it  not  an  enormous  indecency,  as  well  as  a 
gross  impiety,  that  any  one  who  owns  the  name  of  a  divine, 
hearing  a  great  sinner  brave  it  against  heaven,  talk  atheistically, 
and  scoff  profanely  at  that  religion  by  which  he  owns  an  expecta- 
tion to  be  salved,  if  he  cares  to  be  saved  at  all,  should,  instead 
of  vindicating  the  truth  to  the  blasphemer's  teeth,  think  it  dis- 
cretion and  moderation,  forsooth,  with  a  complying  silence,  and 
perhaps  a  smile  to  boot,  tacitly  to  approve  and  strike  in  with  the 
scoffer,  and  so  go  sharer  both  in  the  mirth  and  guilt  of  his  pro- 
fane jests? 

But  let  such  a  one  be  assured,  that  even  that  blasphemer 
himself  would  inwardly  reverence  him  if  rebuked  by  him ;  as, 
on  the  contrary;  he  in  his  heart  really  despises  him  for  his  cow- 
ardly base  silence.  If  any  one  should  reply  here,  that  the  times 
and  manners  of  men  will  not  bear  such  a  practice,  I  confess  that 
it  is  an  answer,  from  the  mouth  of  a  professed  time-server,  very 
rational :  but  as  for  that  man  that  is  not  so,  let  him  satisfy  him- 
self of  the  reason,  justice,  and  duty  of  an  action,  and  leave  the 
event  of  it  to  God,  who  will  never  fail  those  who  do  not  think 
themselves  too  wise  to  trust  him.  For,  let  the  worst  come  to 
the  worst,  a  man  in  so  doing  would  be  ruined  more  honourably 
than  otherwise  preferred. 

4.  And  lastly.  A  fourth  thing  that  makes  a  governor  justly 
despised,  is  a  proneness  to  despise  others.  There  is  a  kind  of 
respect  due  to  the  meanest  person,  even  from  the  greatest ;  for 
it  is  the  mere  favour  of  Providence,  that  he,  who  is  actually  the 
greatest,  was  not  the  meanest.  A  man  cannot  cast  his  respects 
so  low,  but  they  will  rebound  and  return  upon  him.  What 
heaven  bestows  upon  earth  in  kind  influences  and  benign  aspects, 
is  paid  it  back  again  in  sacrifice,  incense,  and  adoration.  And 
surely,  a  great  person  gets  more  by  obliging  his  inferior,  than  he 
can  by  disdaining  him  ;  as  a  man  has  a  greater  advantage  by 
sowing  and  dressing  his  ground,  than  he  can  have  by  trampling 
upon  it.  It  is  not  to  insult  and  domineer,  to  look  disdainfully, 
and  revile  imperiously,  that  procures  an  esteem  from  any  one  : 
it  will  indeed  make  men  keep  their  distance  sufficiently,  but  it 
will  be  distance  without  reverence. 

And  thus  I  have  shown  four  several  causes  that  may  justly 
render  any  ruler  despised  ;  and  by  the  same  work,  I  hope,  have 
made  it  evident,  how  little  cause  men  have  to  despise  the  rulers 
of  our  church. 

God  is  the  fountain  of  honour,  and  the  conduit  by  which  he 
conveys  it  to  the  sons  of  men,  are  virtuous  and  generous  prac- 


88 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  v. 


tices.  But  as  for  us,  who  have  more  immediately  and  nearly 
devoted  both  our  persons  and  concerns  to  his  service,  it  were 
infinitely  vain  to  expect  it  upon  any  other  terms.  Some  indeed 
may  please  and  promise  themselves  high  matters  from  full  reve- 
nues, stately  palaces,  court  interests,  and  great  dependencies : 
but  that  which  makes  the  clergy  glorious,  is  to  be  knowing  in 
their  profession,  unspotted  in  their  lives,  active  and  laborious  in 
their  charges,  bold  and  resolute  in  opposing  seducers,  and  daring 
to  look  vice  in  the  face,  though  never  so  potent  and  illustrious ; 
and  lastly,  to  be  gentle,  courteous,  and  compassionate  to  all. 

These  are  our  robes  and  our  maces,  our  escutcheons,  and 
highest  titles  of  honour :  for  by  all  these  things  God  is  honoured, 
who  has  declared  this  the  eternal  rule  and  standard  of  all  honour 
derivable  upon  men,  that  "  those  who  honour  him  shall  be 
honoured  by  him." 

To  which  God,  fearful  in  praises,  and  working  wonders,  be 
rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise,  might,  majesty, 
and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


89 


SERMON  VL 

why  Christ's  doctrine  was  rejected  by  the  jews. 
John  vh.  17. 

If  any  man  will  do  his  will,  lie  shall  know  of  the  doctrine-,  whether  it 
be  of  God,  or  whether  I  speak  of  myself. 

When  God  was  pleased  to  new  model  the  world  by  the  intro- 
duction of  a  new  religion,  and  that  in  the  room  of  one  set  up  by 
himself,  it  was  requisite  that  he  should  recommend  it  to  the  reasons 
of  men  with  the  same  authority  and  evidence  that  enforced  the 
former ;  and  that  a  religion  established  by  God  himself  should  not 
be  displaced  by  any  thing  under  a  demonstration  of  that  divine 
power  that  first  introduced  it.  And  the  whole  Jewish  economy, 
we  know,  was  brought  in  with  miracles  ;  the  law  was  writ  and  con- 
firmed by  the  same  almighty  hand :  the  whole  universe  was 
subservient  to  its  promulgation  ;  the  signs  of  Egypt  and  the  Red 
sea ;  fire  and  a  voice  from  heaven  ;  the  heights  of  the  one,  and  the 
depths  of  the  other ;  so  that,  as  it  were,  from  the  top  to  the  bottom 
of  nature  there  issued  forth  one  universal  united  testimony  of  the 
divinity  of  the  Mosaic  law  and  religion.  And  this  stood  in  the 
world  for  the  space  of  two  thousand  years ;  till  at  length,  in  the 
fulness  of  time,  the  reason  of  men  ripening  to  such  a  pitch,  as  to 
be  above  the  pedagogy  of  Moses'  rod,  and  the  discipline  of  types, 
God  thought  fit  to  display  the  substance  without  the  shadow,  and 
to  read  the  world  a  lecture  of  a  higher  and  a  more  sublime 
religion  in  Christianity.  But  the  Jewish  was  yet  in  possession, 
and  therefore  that  this  might  so  enter,  as  not  to  intrude,  it  was 
to  bring  its  warrant  from  the  same  hand  of  Omnipotence.  And  for 
this  cause  Christ,  that  he  might  not  make  either  a  suspected  or 
precarious  address  to  men's  understandings,  outdoes  Moses  before 
he  displaces  him ;  shows  an  ascendant  spirit  above  him,  raises  the 
dead,  and  cures  more  plagues  than  he  brought  upon  Egypt,  casts 
out  devils,  and  heals  the  deaf,  speaking  such  words  as  even  gave 
ears  to  hear  them  ;  cures  the  blind  and  the  lame,  and  makes  the 
very  dumb  to  speak  for  the  truth  of  his  doctrine.  But  what  was 
the  result  of  all  this  ?  Why,  some  look  upon  him  as  an  impostor 
and  a  conjurer,  as  an  agent  for  Beelzebub,  and  therefore  reject  his 
gospel,  hold  fast  their  law,  and  will  not  let  Moses  give  place  to 
the  magician. 

Vol.  L — 12  h  2 


90 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  VI. 


Now  the  cause  that  Christ's  doctrine  was  rejected,  must  of 
necessity  be  one  of  these  two.  1.  An  insufficiency  in  the  argu- 
ments brought  by  Christ  to  enforce  it.  Or,  2.  An  indisposition  in 
the  persons  to  whom  this  doctrine  was  addressed,  to  receive  it. 

And  for  this,  Christ,  who  had  not  only  an  infinite  power  to 
work  miracles,  but  also  an  equal  wisdom  both  to  know  the  just 
force  and  measure  of  every  argument,  or  motive  to  persuade  or 
cause  assent ;  and  withal,  to  look  through  and  through  all  the 
dark  corners  of  the  soul  of  man,  all  the  windings  and  turnings, 
and  various  workings  of  his  faculties ;  and  to  discern  how,  and 
by  what  means  they  are  to  be  wrought  upon ;  and  wThat  prevails 
upon  them,  and  what  does  not :  he,  I  say,  states  the  whole 
matter  upon  this  issue ;  that  the  arguments  by  which  his  doctrine 
addressed  itself  to  the  minds  of  men,  were  proper,  adequate,  and 
sufficient  to  compass  their  respective  ends  in  persuading  or  con- 
vincing the  persons  to  whom  they  were  proposed  ;  and  moreover, 
that  there  was  no  such  defect  in  the  natural  light  of  man's  un- 
derstanding, or  knowing  faculty ;  but  that,  considered  in  itself, 
it  would  be  apt  enough  to  close  with,  and  yield  its  assent  to  the 
evidence  of  those  arguments  duly  offered  to,  and  laid  before  it. 
And  yet,  that  after  all  this,  the  event  proved  otherwise;  and  that 
notwithstanding  both  the  weight  and  fitness  of  the  arguments  to 
persuade,  and  the  light  of  man's  intellect  to  meet  this  persuasive 
evidence  with  a  suitable  assent,  no  assent  followed,  nor  were  men 
thereby  actually  persuaded  ;  he  charges  it  wholly  upon  the  cor- 
ruption, the  perverseness,  and  vitiosity  of  man's  will,  as  the  only 
cause  that  rendered  all  the  arguments  his  doctrine  came  clothed 
with,  unsuccessful.  And  consequently,  he  affirms  here  in  the 
text,  that  men  must  love  the  truth  before  they  thoroughly  believe 
it ;  and  that  the  gospel  has  then  only  a  free  admission  into  the 
assent  of  the  understanding,  when  it  brings  a  passport  from  a  rightly 
disposed  will,  as  being  the  great  faculty  of  dominion,  that  com- 
mands all,  that  shuts  out  and  lets  in  what  objects  it  pleases,  and, 
in  a  word,  keeps  the  keys  of  the  whole  soul. 

This  is  the  design  and  purport  of  the  words,  which  I  shall  draw 
forth  and  handle  in  the  prosecution  of  these  four  following  heads. 

I.  I  shall  show  what  the  doctrine  of  Christ  was,  that  the  world 
so  much  stuck  at,  and  was  so  averse  from  believing. 

II.  I  shall  show  that  men's  unbelief  of  it  was  from  no  defect  or 
insufficiency  in  the  arguments  brought  by  Christ  to  enforce  it. 

III.  I  shall  show  what  was  the  true  and  proper  cause  into  which 
this  unbelief  was  resolved. 

IV.  And  lastly,  I  shall  show,  that  a  pious  and  well-disposed 
mind,  attended  with  a  readiness  to  obey  the  known  will  of  God,  is 
the  surest  and  best  means  to  enlighten  the  understanding  to  a  belief 
of  Christianity.    Of  these  in  their  order :  and, 

I.  For  the  doctrine  of  Christ.    We  must  take  it  in  the  known 


• 


why  Christ's  doctrine  was  rejected. 


91 


and  common  division  of  it,  into  matters  of  belief,  and  matters  of 
practice. 

The  matters  of  belief  related  chiefly  to  his  person  and  offices. 
As,  1  That  he  was  the  Messias  that  should  come  into  the  world  : 
the  eternal  Son  of  God,  begotten  of  him  before  all  worlds  :  that 
in  time  he  was  made  man,  and  born  of  a  pure  virgin  :  that  he 
should  die  and  satisfy  for  the  sins  of  the  world  ;  and  that  he 
should  rise  again  from  the  dead,  and  ascend  into  heaven ;  and 
there,  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  hold  the  government  of 
the  whole  world,  till  the  great  and  last  day  ;  in  which  he  should 
judge  both  the  quick  and  the  dead.,  raised  to  life  again  with  the 
very  same  bodies  ;  and  then  deliver  up  all  rule  and  government 
into  the  hands  of  his  Father.'  These  were  the  great  articles 
and  credenda  of  Christianity,  that  so  much  startled  the  world, 
and  seemed  to  be  such  as  not  only  brought  in  a  new  religion 
amongst  men,  but  also  required  new  reason  to  embrace  it. 

The  other  part  of  his  doctrine  lay  in  matters  of  practice ; 
which  we  find  contained  in  his  several  sermons,  but  principally 
in  that  glorious,  full,  and  admirable  discourse  upon  the  mount, 
recorded  in  the  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  chapters  of  St.  Matthew. 
All  which  particulars,  if  we  would  reduce  to  one  general  com- 
prehensive head,  they  are  all  wrapped  up  in  the  doctrine  of  self- 
denial,*  prescribing  to  the  world  the  most  inward  purity-  of  heart, 
and  a  constant  conflict  with  all  our  sensual  appetites  and  worldlv 
interests,  even  to  the  quitting  of  all  that  is  dear  to  us,  and  the 
sacrificing  of  life  itself,  rather  than  knowingly  to  omit  the  least 
duty,  or  commit  the  least  sin.  And  this  was  that  which  grated 
harder  upon,  and  raised  greater  tumults  and  boilings  in  the  hearts 
of  men,  than  the  strangeness  and  seeming  unreasonableness  of  all 
the  former  articles,  that  took  up  chiefly  in  speculation  and  belief. 

And  that  this  was  so,  will  appear  from  a  consideration  of  the  state 
and  condition  the  world  was  in,  as  to  religion,  when  Christ  pro- 
mulged  his  doctrine.  Nothing  further  than  the  outward  action  was 
then  looked  after,  and  when  that  failed,  there  was  an  expiation  ready 
in  the  opus  operation  of  a  sacrifice.  So  that  all  their  virtue  and  re- 
ligion lay  in  their  folds  and  their  stalls,  and  what  was  wanting  in 
the  innocence,  the  blood  of  lambs  was  to  supply.  The  scribes  and 
pharisees,  who  were  the  great  doctors  of  the  Jewish  church,  ex- 
pounded the  law  no  further.  They  accounted  no  man  a  murderer, 
but  he  that  stuck  a  knife  into  his  brother's  heart ;  no  man  an  adulte- 
rer, but  he  that  actually  defiled  his  neighbour's  bed.  They  thought 
it  no  injustice  nor  irreligion  to  prosecute  the  severest  retaliation  or 
revenge  ;  so  that  at  the  same  time  their  outward  man  might  be  a 
sapf  and  their  inward  man  a  devil.  Xo  care  at  all  was  had  to 
cffb  the  unruliness  of  anger,  or  the  exorbitance  of  desire.  Amongst 
all  their  sacrifices,  they  never  sacrificed  so  much  as  one  lust.  Bulls 
and  goats  bled  apace,  but  neither  the  violence  of  the  one,  nor  the 

*  See  Serm.  i Li.  on  Matthew  x.  33,  p.  36. 


92 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS.  [sERM.  VI. 


"wantonness  of  the  other,  ever  died  a  victim  at  any  of  their  altars. 
So  that  no  wonder  that  a  doctrine  which  arraigned  the  irregularities 
of  the  most  inward  motions  and  affections  of  the  soul,  and  told  men, 
that  anger  and  harsh  words  were  murder,  and  looks  and  desires 
adultery ;  that  a  man  might  stab  with  his  tongue,  and  assassinate 
with  his  mind,  pollute  himself  with  a  glance,  and  forfeit  eternity 
by  a  cast  of  his  eye ;  no  wonder,  I  say,  that  such  a  doctrine 
made  a  strange  bustle  and  disturbance  in  the  world,  which  then 
sat  warm  and  easy  in  a  free  enjoyment  of  their  lusts ;  ordering 
matters  so,  that  they  put  a  trick  upon  the  great  rule  of  virtue, 
the  law,  and  made  a  shift  to  think  themselves  guiltless,  in  spite 
of  all  their  sins  ;  to  break  the  precept,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
baffle  the  curse  ;  contriving  themselves  such  a  sort  of  holiness,  as 
should  please  God  and  themselves  too  ;  justify  and  save  them 
harmless,  but  never  sanctify  or  make  them  better. 

But  the  severe  notions  of  Christianity  turned  all  this  upside 
down,  filling  all  with  surprise  and  amazement;  they  came  upon 
the  world  like  light  darting  full  upon  the  face  of  a  man  asleep, 
who  had  a  mind  to  sleep  on,  and  not  to  be  disturbed ;  they  were 
terrible  astonishing  alarms  to  persons  grown  fat  and  wealthy  by 
a  long  and  successful  imposture  ;  by  suppressing  the  true  sense 
of  the  law,  by  putting  another  veil  upon  Moses  ;  and,  in  a  word, 
persuading  the  world,  that  men  might  be  honest  and  religious, 
happy  and  blessed,  though  they  never  denied  nor  mortified  one 
of  their  corrupt  appetites. 

And  thus  much  for  the  first  thing  proposed  ;  which  was  to 
give  you  a  brief  draught  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ,  that  met  with 
so  little  assent  from  the  world  in  general,  and  from  the  Jews  in 
particular.    I  come  now  to  the 

II.  Second  thing  proposed  ;  which  was  to  show,  That  men's 
unbelief  of  ChrisVs  doctrine  was  from  no  defect  or  insufficiency  in 
the  arguments  brought  by  Christ  to  enforce  it.  This  I  shall  make 
appear  two  ways. 

1.  By  showing  that  the  arguments  spoken  of  were  in  them- 
selves convincing  and  sufficient.  2.  By  showing  that  upon  sup- 
position they  were  not  so,  yet  their  insufficiency  was  not  the  cause 
of  their  rejection. 

1 .  And  first  for  the  first  of  these :  That  the  arguments 
brought  by  Christ  for  the  confirmation  of  his  doctrine  were 
in  themselves  convincing  and  sufficient.  I  shall  insist  only  upon 
the  convincing  power  of  the  two  principal ;  one  from  the  pro- 
phecies recorded  concerning  him,  the  other  from  the  miracles 
done  by  him.  Of  both  very  briefly.  And  for  the  former  ^here 
was  a  full  entire  harmony  and  consent  of  all  the  divine  pree^c- 
tions  receiving  their  completion  in  Christ.  The  strength  of 
which  argument  lies  in  this,  that  it  evinces  the  divine  mission 
of  Christ's  person,  and  thereby  proves  him  to  be  the  Messias; 


why  Christ's  doctrine  was  rejected. 


93 


which  by  consequence  proves  and  asserts  the  truth  of  his  doc- 
trine ;  for  he  that  was  so  sent  by  God,  could  declare  nothing 
but  the  will  of  God.  And  so  evidently  do  all  the  prophecies 
agree  to  Christ,  that  I  dare  with  great  confidence  affirm,  that  if 
the  prophecies  recorded  of  the  Messiah  are  not  fulfilled  in  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,  it  is  impossible  to  know  or  distinguish  when  a  pro- 
phecy is  fulfilled,  and  when  not,  in  any  thing  or  person  whatso- 
ever; which  would  utterly  evacuate  the  use  of  them.  But  in 
Christ  they  all  meet  with  such  an  invincible  lustre  and  evidence, 
as  if  they  were  not  predictions,  but  after  relations  ;  and  the  pen- 
men of  them  not  prophets,  but  evangelists.  And  now,  can  any 
kind  of  ratiocination  allow  Christ  all  the  marks  of  the  Messiah, 
and  yet  deny  him  to  be  the  Messiah?  Could  he  have  all  the 
signs,  and  yet  not  be  the  thing  signified  ?  Could  the  shadows 
that  followed  him,  and  were  cast  from  him,  belong  to  any  other 
body  ?  All  these  things  were  absurd  and  unnatural ;  and  there- 
force  the  force  of  this  argument  was  undeniable. 

Nor  was  that  other  from  the  miracles  done  by  him  at  all 
inferior.  The  strength  and  force  of  which,  to  prove  the  things 
they  are  alleged  for,  consists  in  this  ;  that  a  miracle  being  a  work 
exceeding  the  power  of  any  created  agent,  and  consequently 
being  an  effect  of  the  divine  omnipotence,  when  it  is  done  to 
give  credit  and  authority  to  any  word  or  doctrine  declared  to 
proceed  from  God,  either  that  doctrine  must  really  proceed  from 
God,  as  it  is  declared ;  or  God,  by  that  work  of  his  almighty 
power,  must  bear  witness  to  a  falsehood ;  and  so  bring  the 
creature  under  the  greatest  obligations  that  can  possibly  engage 
the  assent  of  a  rational  nature,  to  believe  and  assent  to  a  lie. 
For  surely  a  greater  reason  than  this  cannot  be  produced  for  the 
belief  of  any  thing,  than  for  a  man  to  stand  up  and  say,  This  and 
this  I  tell  you  as  the  mind  and  word  of  God  ;  and  to  prove  that 
it  is  so,  I  will  do  that  before  your  eyes,  that  you  yourselves  shall 
confess  can  be  done  by  nothing  but  the  almighty  power  of  that 
God  that  can  neither  deceive  nor  be  deceived.  Now  if  this  be 
an  irrefragable  way  to  convince,  as  the  reason  of  all  mankind 
must  confess  it  be,  then  Christ's  doctrine  came  attended  and 
enforced  with  the  greatest  means  of  conviction  imaginable.  Thus 
much  for  the  argument  in  thesi ;  and  then  for  the  assumption, 
that  Christ  did  such  miraculous  and  supernatural  works  to  con- 
firm what  he  said,  we  need  only  repeat  the  message  sent  by  him 
to  John  the  Baptist :  "  That  the  dumb  spake,  the  blind  saw,  the 
lame  walked,  and  the  dead  were  raised."  Which  particulars  none 
of  his  bitterest  enemies  ever  pretended  to  deny,  they  being  con- 
veyed to  them  by  an  evidence  past  all  exception,  even  the 
evidence  of  sense:  nay,  of  the  quickest,  the  surest,  and  most 
authentic  of  all  the  senses,  the  sight ;  which  if  it  be  not  certain 
in  the  reports  and  representations  it  makes  of  things  to  the  mind, 
there  neither  is,  nor  can  be  naturally,  any  such  thing  as  certainty 


94 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VI. 


or  knowledge  in  the  world.  And  thus  much  for  the  first  part  of 
the  second  general  thing  proposed  :  namely,  That  the  arguments 
brought  by  Christ  for  the  proof  of  his  doctrine,  were  in  them- 
selves convincing  and  sufficient. 

2.  I  come  now  to  the  other  part  of  it,  which  is  to  show,  That 
admitting  or  supposing  that  they  were  not  sufficient,  yet  their 
insufficiency  was  not  the  cause  of  their  actual  rejection.  Which 
will  appear  from  these  following  reasons  : 

(1.)  Because  those  who  rejected  Christ's  doctrine,  and  the 
arguments  by  which  he  confirmed  it,  fully  believed  and  assented 
to  other  things  conveyed  to  them  with  less  evidence.  Such  as 
were  even  the  miracles  of  Moses  himself,  upon  the  credit  and 
authority  of  which  stood  the  whole  economy  of  the  Jewish  con- 
stitution. For  though  I  grant  that  they  believed  his  miracles 
upon  the  credit  of  constant  unerring  tradition,  both  written  and 
unwritten,  and  grant  also  that  such  tradition  was  of  as  great  cer- 
tainty as  the  reports  of  sense :  yet  still  I  affirm  that  it  was  not 
of  the  same  evidence,  which  yet  is  the  greatest  and  most  im- 
mediate ground  of  all  assent. 

The  evidence  of  sense,  as  I  have  noted,  is  the  clearest  that 
naturally  the  mind  of  man  can  receive,  and  is  indeed  the  founda- 
tion both  of  all  the  evidence  and  certainty  too,  that  tradition  is 
capable  of ;  which  pretends  to  no  other  credibility  from  the  testi- 
mony and  word  of  some  men,  but  because  their  word  is  at  length 
traced  up  to,  and  originally  terminates  in,  the  sense  and  ex- 
perience of  some  others,  which  could  not  be  known  beyond  that 
compass  of  time  in  which  it  was  exercised,  but  by  being  told  and 
reported  to  such  as,  not  living  at  that  time,  saw  it  not,  and  by 
them  to  others,  and  so  down  from  one  age  to  another.  For  we 
therefore  believe  the  report  of  some  men  concerning  a  thing, 
because  it  implies  that  there  were  some  others  who  actually  saw 
that  thing.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  want  of  evidence  could  not 
be  the  cause  that  the  Jews  rejected  and  disbelieved  the  gospel, 
since  they  embraced  and  believed  the  law  upon  the  credit  of 
those  miracles  that  were  less  evident.  For  those  of  Christ  they 
knew  by  sight  and  sense,  those  of  Moses  only  by  tradition  ; 
which,  though  equally  certain,  yet  were  by  no  means  equally 
evident  with  the  other. 

(2.)  They  believed  and  assented  to  things  that  were  neither 
evident  nor  certain,  but  only  probable  ;  for  they  conversed,  they 
traded,  they  merchandized,  and  by  so  doing,  frequently  ventured 
their  whole  estates  and  fortunes  upon  a  probable  belief  or  per- 
suasion of  the  honesty  and  truth  of  those  whom  they  dealt  and 
corresponded  with.  And  interest,  especially  in  worldly  matters, 
and  yet  more  especially  with  a  Jew,  never  proceeds  but  upon 
supposal,  at  least,  of  a  firm  and  sufficient  bottom :  from  whence 
it  is  manifest,  that  since  they  could  believe,  and  practically  rely 
upon,  and  that  even  in  their  dearest  concerns,  bare  probabilities ; 


why  Christ's  doctrine  was  rejected. 


95 


they  could  not,  with  any  colour  of  reason,  pretend  want  of  evidence 
for  their  disbelief  of  Christ's  doctrine,  which  came  enforced  with 
arguments  far  surpassing  all  such  probabilities. 

3.  They  believed  and  assented  to  things  neither  evident  nor 
certain,  nor  vet  so  much  as  probable,  but  actually  ialse  and  falla- 
cious. Such  as  were  the  absurd  doctrines  and  stories  of  their 
rabbins  ;  which,  though  since  Christ's  time  they  have  grown  much 
more  numerous  and  fabulous  than  before,  yet  even  then  did  so 
much  pester  the  church,  and  so  grossly  abuse  and  delude  the 
minds  of  that  people,  that  contradictions  themselves  asserted  by 
rabbies,  were  equally  received  and  revered  by  them  as  the  sacred 
and  infallible  word  of  God.  And  whereas  they  rejected  Christ  and 
his  doctrine,  though  every  tittle  of  it  came  enforced  with  miracle, 
and  the  best  arguments  that  heaven  and  earth  could  back  it  with ; 
yet  Christ  then  foretold,  and  after  times  confirmed  that  prediction 
of  his  in  John  v.  43,  that  they  "  should  receive"  many  cheats 
and  deceivers  "coming  to  them  in  their  own  name;"  fellows  that 
set  up  for  Messiahs,  only  upon  their  own  heads,  without  pretend- 
ing to  any  thing  singular  or  miraculous,  but  impudence  and  im- 
posture. 

From  all  which  it  follows,  that  the  Jews  could  not  allege  so  much 
as  a  pretence  of  the  want  of  evidence  in  the  argument  brought  by 
Christ  to  prove  the  divinity  and  authority-  of  his  doctrine,  as  a 
reason  of  their  rejection  and  disbelief  of  it ;  since  they  embraced 
and  believed  many  things,  for  some  of  which  they  had  no  evidence, 
and  for  others  of  which  they  had  no  certainty,  and  for  most  of 
which  they  had  not  so  much  as  probability.  Which  being  so,  from 
whence  then  could  such  an  obstinate  infidelity,  in  matters  of  so 
great  clearness  and  credibility,  take  its  rise  ?  Why,  this  will  be 
made  out  to  us  in  the 

III.  Third  thins;  proposed,  which  was  to  show  what  was  the 
true  and  proper  cause  into  which  this  unbelief  of  the  Pharisees  was 
resolved.  And  that  was,  in  a  word,  the  captivity  of  their  wills 
and  affections  to  lusts  directly  opposite  to  the  design  and  spirit  of 
Christianity.  They  were  extremely  ambitious,  and  insatiably 
covetous ;  and  therefore  no  impression  from  argument  or  miracle 
could  reach  them,  but  they  stood  proof  against  all  conviction. 
Now,  to  show  how  the  pravity  of  the  will  could  influence  the 
understanding  to  a  disbelief  of  Christianity-,  I  shall  premise  these 
two  considerations  : 

1.  That  the  understanding,  in  its  assent  to  any  religion,  is  very 
differently  wrought  upon  in  persons  bred  up  in  it,  and  in  persons 
at  length  converted  to  it.  For  in  the  first,  it  finds  the  mind  naked, 
and  unprepossessed  with  any  former  notions,  and  so  easily  and 
insensibly  °;ains  upon  the  assent,  grows  up  with  it,  and  incorporates 
into  it.  But  in  persons  adult,  and  already  possessed  with  other 
notions  of  religion,  the  understanding  cannot  be  brought  to  quit 


96 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VI. 


these,  and  to  change  them  for  new,  but  by  great  consideration  and 
examination  of  the  truth  and  firmness  of  the  one,  and  comparing 
them  with  the  flaws  and  weakness  of  the  other.  Which  cannot  be 
done  without  some  labour  and  intention  of  the  mind,  and  the 
thoughts  dwelling  a  considerable  time  upon  the  survey  and  discus- 
sion of  each  particular. 

2.  The  other  thing  to  be  considered  is,  that  in  this  great 
work  the  understanding  is  chiefly  at  the  disposal  of  the  will. 
For  though  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  the  will,  directly  either  to 
cause  or  hinder  the  assent  of  the  understanding  to  a  thing  pro- 
posed, and  duly  set  before  it ;  yet  it  is  antecedently  in  the  power 
of  the  will,  to  apply  the  understanding  faculty  to,  or  to  take  it 
off  from  the  consideration  of  those  objects  to  which,  without 
such  a  previous  consideration,  it  cannot  yield  its  assent.  For  all 
assent  presupposes  a  simple  apprehension  or  knowledge  of  the 
terms  of  the  proposition  to  be  assented  to.  But  unless  the  un- 
derstanding employ  and  exercise  its  cognitive  or  apprehensive 
power  about  these  terms,  there  can  be  no  actual  apprehension  of 
them.  And  the  understanding,  as  to  the  exercise  of  this  power, 
is  subject  to  the  command  of  the  will ;  though  as  to  the  specific 
nature  of  its  acts  it  is  determined  by  the  object.  As  for  instance; 
my  understanding  cannot  assent  to  this  proposition,  "  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  Son  of  God ;"  but  it  must  first  consider,  and  so 
apprehend  what  the  terms  and  parts  of  it  are,  and  what  they 
signify.  And  this  cannot  be  done,  if  my  will  be  so  slothful, 
worldly,  or  voluptuously  disposed,  as  never  to  suffer  me  at  all  to 
think  of  them  ;  but  perpetually  to  carry  away,  and  apply  my  mind 
to  other  things.  Thus  far  is  the  understanding  at  the  disposal 
of  the  will. 

Now  these  two  considerations  being  premised,  namely,  that 
persons  grown  up  in  the  belief  of  any  religion  cannot  change 
that  for  another,  without  applying  their  understanding  duly  to 
consider  and  compare  both  ;  and  then,  that  it  is  in  the  power  of 
the  will,  whether  it  will  suffer  the  understanding  thus  to  dwell 
upon  such  objects  or  no  ;  from  these  two,  I  say,  we  have  the  true 
philosophy  and  reason  of  the  Pharisees'  unbelief:  fcr  they  could 
not  relinquish  their  Judaism,  and  embrace  Christianity,  without 
considering,  weighing,  and  collating  both  religions.  And  this 
their  understanding  could  not  apply  to,  if  it  were  diverted  and 
taken  off  by  their  will ;  and  their  will  would  be  sure  to  divert 
and  take  it  off,  being  wholly  possessed  and  governed  by  their 
covetousness  and  ambition,  which  perfectly  abhorred  the  precepts 
of  such  a  doctrine.  And  this  is  the  very  account  that  our 
Saviour  himself  gives  of  this  matter  in  John  v.  44,  "How  can 
ye  believe,"  says  he,  "  who  receive  honour  one  of  another?"  He 
looked  upon  it  as  a  thing  morally  impossible,  for  persons  infinitely 
proud  and  ambitious,  to  frame  their  minds  to  an  impartial,  un- 
biassed consideration  of  a  religion  that  taught  nothing  but  self- 


why  Christ's  doctrine  was  rejected. 


97 


denial  and  the  cross ;  that  humility  was  honour  ;  and  that  the 
higher  men  climbed,  the  further  they  were  from  heaven.  They 
could  not  with  patience  so  much  as  think  of  it ;  and  therefore, 
you  may  be  sure,  would  never  assent  to  it.  And  again  ;  when 
Christ  discoursed  to  them  of  alms,  and  a  pious  distribution  of 
the  goods  and  riches  of  this  world,  in  Luke  xvi.  it  is  said  in 
the  14th  verse,  that  "  the  Pharisees,  who  were  covetous,  heard 
all  those  things,  and  derided  him."  Charity  and  liberality  is  a 
paradox  to  the  covetous.  The  doctrine  that  teaches  alms,  and 
the  persons  that  need  them,  are  by  such  equally  sent  packing. 
Tell  a  miser  of  bounty  to  a  friend,  or  mercy  to  the  poor,  and 
point  him  out  his  duty  with  an  evidence  as  bright  and  piercing 
as  the  light,  yet  he  will  not  understand  it,  but  shuts  his  eyes  as 
close  as  he  does  his  hands,  and  resolves  not  to  be  convinced.  In 
both  these  cases,  there  is  an  incurable  blindness  caused  by  a  re- 
solution not  to  see  ;  and  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  he  who  will 
not  open  his  eves,  is,  for  the  present,  as  blind  as  he  that  cannot. 
And  thus  I  have  done  with  the  third  thing  proposed,  and  shown 
what  was  the  true  cause  of  the  Pharisees'  disbelief  of  Christ's 
doctrine :  it  was  the  predominance  of  those  two  great  vices  over 
the  will,  their  covetousness  and  ambition.    Pass  we  now  to  the 

IV.  And  last,  which  is  to  show,  that  a  pious  and  well  disposed 
mind,  attended  with  a  readiness  to  obey  the  known  will  of  God,  is 
the  surest  and  best  tnea7is  to  enlighten  the  understanding  to  a  belief  of 
Christianity.    That  it  is  so,  will  appear  upon  a  double  account. 

1.  First,  upon  the  account  of  God's  goodness,  and  the  method 
of  his  dealing  with  the  souls  of  men  ;  which  is,  to  reward  every 
degree  of  sincere  obedience  to  his  will,  with  a  further  discovery 
of  it.  "  I  understand  more  than  the  ancients,"  says  David,  Ps. 
cxix.  100.  But  how  did  he  attain  such  an  excellency  of  under- 
standing ?  Was  it  by  longer  study,  or  a  greater  quickness  and 
felicity  of  parts,  than  was  in  those  before  him  ?  No,  he  gives  the 
reason  in  the  next  words ;  it  was  "  because  I  keep  thy  statutes." 
He  got  the  start  of  them  in  point  of  obedience,  and  thereby 
outstripped  them  at  length  in  point  of  knowledge.  And  who,  in 
old  time,  were  the  men  of  extraordinary  revelations,  but  those 
who  were  also  men  of  extraordinary  piety?  Who  were  made 
privy  to  the  secrets  of  heaven,  and  the  hidden  will  of  the  Al- 
mighty, but  such  as  performed  his  revealed  will  at  an  higher  rate 
of  strictness  than  the  rest  of  the  world  ?  They  were  the  Enochs, 
the  Abrahams,  the  Elijahs,  and  the  Daniels  ;  such  as  the  scrip- 
ture remarkably  testifies  of,  that  "  they  walked  with  God." 
And  surely  he  that  walks  with  another,  is  in  a  likelier  way  to 
know  and  understand  his  mind,  than  he  that  follows  him  at  a 
distance.  Upon  which  account  the  learned  Jews  still  made  this 
one  of  the  ingredients  that  went  to  constitute  a  prophet,  that  he 
should  be  perfectus  in  moralibus,  a  person  of  exact  morals,  and 

Vol.  I.— 13  I 


98 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VI. 


unblameable  in  his  life ;  the  gift  of  prophecy  being  a  ray  of  such 
a  light,  as  never  darts  itself  upon  a  dunghill.  And  what  I  here 
observe  occasionally  of  extraordinary  revelation  and  prophecy, 
will,  by  analogy  and  due  proportion,  extend  even  to  those 
communications  of  God's  will,  that  are  requisite  to  men's  salva- 
tion. An  honest  hearty  simplicity  and  proneness  to  do  all  that 
a  mau  knows  of  God's  will,  is  the  ready,  certain,  and  infallible 
way  to  know  more  of  it.  For  I  am  sure  it  may  be  said  of  the 
practical  knowledge  of  religion,  "  That  to  him  that  hath  shall  be 
given,  and  he  shall  have  more  abundantly." 

I  dare  not,  I  confess,  join  in  that  bold  assertion  of  some,  that 
facienti  quod  in  se  est,  Deus  nec  debet  nec  potest  denegare  gratiam, 
which  indeed  is  no  less  than  a  direct  contradiction  in  the  very 
terms  ;  for  if  Deus  debet,  then  id  quod  debetur  non  est  gratia ;  there 
being  a  perfect  inconsistency  between  that  which  is  of  debt,  and 
that  which  is  of  free  gift.  And  therefore  leaving  the  non  debet 
and  the  non  potest  to  those  that  can  bind  and  loose  the  Almighty 
at  their  pleasure ;  so  much,  I  think,  we  may  pronounce  safely  in 
this  matter,  that  the  goodness  and  mercy  of  God  is  such,  that  he 
never  deserts  a  sincere  person,  nor  suffers  any  one  that  shall  live 
(even  according  to  these  measures  of  sincerity)  up  to  what  he 
knows,  to  perish  for  want  of  any  knowledge  necessary,  and  what 
is  more,  sufficient  to  save  him. 

If  any  one  would  here  say,  Were  there  then  none  living  up 
to  these  measures  of  sincerity  among  the  heathen?  And  if  there 
were,  did  the  goodness  of  God  afford  such  persons  knowledge 
enough  to  save  them  ?  My  answer  is  according  to  that  of  St. 
Paul,  "I  judge  not  those  that  are  without  the  church:"  they 
stand  or  fall  to  their  own  master :  I  have  nothing  to  say  of 
them.  "  Secret  things  belong  to  God ;"  it  becomes  us  to  be 
thankful  to  God,  and  charitable  to  men. 

2.  A  pious  and  wrell  disposed  will  is  the  readiest  means  to 
enlighten  the  understanding  to  a  knowledge  of  the  truth  of 
Christianity,  upon  the  account  of  a  natural  efficiency :  forasmuch 
as  a  will  so  disposed  will  be  sure  to  engage  the  mind  in  a  severe 
search  into  the  great  and  concerning  truths  of  religion  :  nor  will 
it  only  engage  the  mind  in  such  a  search ;  but  it  will  also  ac- 
company that  search  with  two  dispositions,  directly  tending  to,  and 
principally  productive  of,  the  discoveries  of  truth  ;  namely,  dili- 
gence and  impartiality.  And, 

(1.)  For  the  diligence  of  the  search.  Diligence  is  the  great 
harbinger  of  truth ;  which  rarely  takes  up  in  any  mind  till  that 
has  gone  before,  and  made  room  for  it.  It  is  a  steady,  constant, 
and  pertinacious  study,  that  naturally  leads  the  soul  into  the 
knowledge  of  that  which  at  first  seemed  locked  up  from  it ;  for 
this  keeps  the  understanding  long  in  converse  with  an  object, 
and  long  converse  brings  acquaintance.  Frequent  consideration 
of  a  thing  wears  off  the  strangeness  of  it;  and  shows  it  in  its 


why  Christ's  doctrine  was  rejected. 


99 


several  lights,  and  various  ways  of  appearance,  to  the  view  of  the 
mind. 

Truth  is  a  great  stronghold,  barred  and  fortified  by  God  and 
nature  ;  and  diligence  is  properly  the  understanding's  laying  siege 
to  it :  so  that,  as  in  a  kind  of  warfare,  it  must  be  perpetually  upon 
the  watch,  observing  all  the  avenues  and  passes  to  it,  and  accord- 
ingly makes  its  approaches.  Sometimes  it  thinks  it  gains  a  point ; 
and  presently  again  it  finds  itself  baffled  and  beaten  off:  yet  still  it 
renews  the  onset ;  attacks  the  difficulty  afresh  ;  plants  this  reasoning 
and  that  argument,  this  consequence  and  that  distinction,  like  so 
many  intellectual  batteries,  till,  at  length,  it  forces  a  way  and  passage 
into  the  obstinate  inclosed  truth,  that  so  long  withstood  and  defied 
all  its  assaults. 

The  Jesuits  have  a  saying  common  amongst  them,  touching  the 
instruction  of  youth,  (in  which  their  chief  strength  and  talent  lies,) 
that  vexatio  dat  intellection.  As  when  the  mind  casts  and  turns 
itself  restlessly  from  one  thing  to  another,  strains  this  powTer  of  the 
soul  to  apprehend,  that  to  judge,  another  to  divide,  a  fourth  to 
remember ;  thus  tracing  out  the  nice  and  scarce  observable  differ- 
ence of  some  things,  and  the  real  agreement  of  others,  till,  at 
length,  it  brings  all  the  ends  of  a  long  and  various  hypothesis 
together ;  sees  how  one  part  coheres  with,  and  depends  upon 
another;  and  so  clears  off  all  the  appearing  contrarieties  and  con- 
tradictions that  seemed  to  lie  cross  and  uncouth,  and  to  make  the 
whole  unintelligible.  This  is  the  laborious  and  vexatious  inquest, 
that  the  soul  must  make  after  science.  For  truth,  like  a  stately 
dame,  will  not  be  seen,  nor  show  herself  at  the  first  visit,  nor  match 
with  the  understanding  upon  an  ordinary  courtship  or  address. 
Long  and  tedious  attendances  must  be  given,  and  the  hardest 
fatigues  endured  and  digested ;  nor  did  ever  the  most  pregnant  wit 
in  the  world  bring  forth  any  thing  great,  lasting,  and  considerable, 
without  some  pain  and  travail,  some  pangs  and  throes  before  the 
delivery. 

Now  all  this  that  I  have  said,  is  to  show  the  force  of  diligence 
in  the  investigation  of  truth,  and  particularly  of  the  noblest  of  all 
truths,  which  is  that  of  religion.  But  then,  as  diligence  is  the 
great  discoverer  of  truth,  so  is  the  will  the  great  spring  of  diligence ; 
for  no  man  can  heartily  search  after  that  which  he  is  not  very 
desirous  to  find.  Diligence  is  to  the  understanding  as  the  whet- 
stone to  the  razor ;  but  the  will  is  the  hand  that  must  apply  one  to 
the  other. 

What  makes  many  men  so  strangely  immerse  themselves,  some 
in  chemical,  and  some  in  mathematical  inquiries,  but  because  they 
strangely  love  the  things  they  labour  in  ?  Their  intent  study  gives 
them  skill  and  proficiency ;  and  their  particular  affection  to  these 
kinds  of  knowledge  puts  them  upon  such  study.  Accordingly,  let 
there  be  but  the  same  propensity  and  bent  of  will  to  religion,  and 
there  will  be  the  same  sedulity  and  indefatigable  industry  in  men's 


100 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  VI. 


inquiry  into  it.  And  then,  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  the  con- 
sequent of  a  sedulous  seeking  is  finding,  and  the  fruit  of  inquiry  is 
information. 

(2.)  A  pious  and  well  disposed  will  gives  not  only  diligence, 
but  also  impartiality  to  the  understanding,  in  its  search  into 
religion,  which  is  as  absolutely  necessary  to  give  success  to  our 
inquiries  into  truth  as  the  former  ;  it  being  scarcely  possible  for 
that  man  to  hit  the  mark,  whose  eye  is  still  glancing  upon  some- 
thing beside  it.  Partiality  is  properly  the  understanding's  judging 
according  to  the  inclination  of  the  will  and  affections,  and  not 
according  to  the  exact  truth  of  things,  or  the  merits  of  the  cause 
before  it.  Affection  is  still  a  briber  of  the  judgment ;  and  it  is  hard 
for  a  man  to  admit  a  reason  against  the  thing  he  loves,  or  to  confess 
the  force  of  an  argument  against  an  interest. 

In  this  case  he  prevaricates  with  his  own  understanding,  and 
cannot  seriously  and  sincerely  set  his  mind  to  consider  the 
strength,  to  poise  the  weight,  and  to  discern  the  evidence  of  the 
clearest  and  best  argumentations,  where  they  would  conclude 
against  the  darling  of  his  desires.  For  still  that  beloved  thing 
possesses,  and  even  engrosses  him,  and,  like  a  coloured  glass 
before  his  eyes,  casts  its  own  colour  and  tincture  upon  all  the 
images  and  ideas  of  things  that  pass  from  the  fancy  to  the  un- 
derstanding; and  so  absolutely  does  it  sway  that,  that  if  a 
strange  irresistible  evidence  of  some  unacceptable  truth  should 
chance  to  surprise  and  force  reason  to  assent  to  the  premises, 
affection  would  yet  step  in  at  last,  and  make  it  quit  the  con- 
clusion. 

Upon  which  account,  Socinus  and  his  followers  state  the  reason 
of  a  man's  believing  or  embracing  Christianity  upon  the  natural 
goodness  or  virtuous  disposition  of  his  mind,  which  they  some- 
times call  naturalis  probitas,  and  sometimes  animus  in  virtu- 
tern  pronus.  For,  say  they,  the  whole  doctrine  of  Christianity 
teaches  nothing  but  what  is  perfectly  suitable  to,  and  coincident 
with,  the  ruling  principles ;  that  a  virtuous  and  well-inclined 
man  is  acted  by  and  with  the  main  interest  that  he  proposes  to 
himself.  So  that,  as  soon  as  ever  it  is  declared  to  such  a  one, 
he  presently  closes  in,  accepts,  and  complies  with  it:  as  a  pre- 
pared soil  eagerly  takes  in,  and  firmly  retains,  such  seed  or 
plants  as  particularly  agree  with  it. 

With  ordinary  minds,  such  as  much  the  greatest  part  of  the 
world  are,  it  is  the  suitableness,  not  the  evidence  of  a  truth,  that 
makes  it  to  be  assented  to.  And  it  is  seldom  that  any  thing 
practically  convinces  a  man,  that  does  not  please  him  first.  If 
you  would  be  sure  of  him,  you  must  inform  and  gratify  him  too. 
But  now  impartiality  strips  the  mind  of  prejudice  and  passion, 
keeps  it  right  and  even  from  the  bias  of  interest  and  desire,  and  so 
presents  it  like  a  rasa  tabula,  equally  disposed  to  the  reception  of 
all  truth.    So  that  the  soul  lies  prepared,  and  open  to  entertain 


why  Christ's  doctrine  was  rejected. 


101 


it,  and  prepossessed  with  nothing  that  can  oppose,  or  thrust  it 
out  ;  for  where  diligence  opens  the  door  of  the  understanding,  and 
impartiality  keeps  it,  truth  is  sure  to  find  both  an  entrance, 
and  a  welcome  too. 

And  thus  I  have  done  with  the  fourth  and  last  general  thing 
proposed,  and  proved  by  argument :  That  a  pious  and  well-dis- 
posed mind,  attended  with  a  readiness  to  obey  the  known  will  of 
God,  is  the  surest  and  best  means  to  enlighten  the  understanding 
to  a  belief  of  Christianity. 

Now,  from  the  foregoing  particulars,  by  way  of  use,  we  may 
collect  these  two  things. 

1.  The  true  cause  of  that  atheism,  that  scepticism,  and  ca- 
villing at  religion,  which  we  see,  and  have  cause  to  lament  in  too 
many  in  these  days.  It  is  not  from  any  thing  weak  or  wanting 
in  our  religion,  to  support  and  enable  it  to  look  the  strongest 
arguments,  and  the  severest  and  most  controlling  reason,  in  the 
face  :  but  men  are  atheistical,  because  they  are  first  vicious ;  and 
question  the  truth  of  Christianity,  because  they  hate  the  prac- 
tice. And  therefore,  that  they  may  seem  to  have  some  pretence 
and  colour  to  sin  on  freely,  and  to  surrender  up  themselves  wholly 
to  their  sensuality,  without  any  imputation  upon  their  judgment, 
and  to  quit  their  morals,  without  any  discredit  to  their  intellec- 
tuals ;  they  fly  to  several  stale,  trite,  pitiful  objections  and  cavils, 
some  against  religion  in  general,  and  some  against  Christianity 
in  particular,  and  some  against  the  very  first  principles  of  mo- 
rality, to  give  them  some  poor  credit  and  countenance  in  the 
pursuit  of  their  brutish  courses. 

Few  practical  errors  in  the  world  are  embraced  upon  the  stock 
of  conviction,  but  inclination  :  for  though  indeed  the  judgment 
may  err  upon  the  account  of  weakness,  yet  where  there  is  one 
error  that  enters  in  at  this  door,  ten  are  let  into  it  through  the 
will ;  that,  for  the  most  part,  being  set  upon  those  things,  which 
truth  is  a  direct  obstacle  to  the  enjoyment  of ;  and  where  both 
cannot  be  had,  a  man  will  be  sure  to  buy  his  enjoyment,  though 
he  pays  down  truth  for  the  purchase.  For,  in  this  case  the 
further  from  truth,  the  further  from  trouble ;  since  truth  shows 
such  a  one  what  he  is  unwilling  to  see,  and  tells  him  what  he 
hates  to  hear.  They  are  the  same  beams  that  shine  and  en- 
lighten, and  are  apt  to  scorch  too :  and  it  is  impossible  for  a  man 
engaged  in  any  wicked  way,  to  have  a  clear  understanding  of  it, 
and  a  quiet  mind  in  it,  together. 

But  these  sons  of  Epicurus,  both  for  voluptuousness  and  irre- 
ligion  also,  as  it  is  hard  to  support  the  former  without  the  latter, 
these,  I  say,  rest  not  here ;  but  (if  you  will  take  them  at  their 
word)  they  must  also  pass  for  the  only  wits  of  the  age :  though 
greater  arguments,  I  am  sure,  may  be  produced  against  this, 
than  any  they  can  allege  against  the  most  improbable  article  of 


102 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VI. 


Christianity.  But  heretofore  the  rate  and  standard  of  wit  was 
very  different  from  what  it  is  now-a-days.  No  man  was  then 
accounted  a  wit  for  speaking  such  things  as  deserved  to  have  the 
tongue  cut  out  that  spake  them  ;  nor  did  any  man  pass  for  a 
philosopher,  or  a  man  of  depth,  for  talking  atheistically ;  or  a 
man  of  parts,  for  employing  them  against  that  God  that  gave 
them.  For  then  the  world  was  generally  better  inclined  ;  virtue 
was  in  so  much  reputation,  as  to  be  pretended  to  at  least.  And 
virtue,  whether  in  a  Christian  or  in  an  infidel,  can  have  no  in- 
terest to  be  served  either  by  atheism  or  infidelity. 

For  which  cause,  could  we  but  prevail  with  the  greatest  de- 
bauchees amongst  us  to  change  their  lives,  we  should  find  it  no 
very  hard  matter  to  change  their  judgments.  For  notwith- 
standing all  their  talk  of  reason  and  philosophy,  which,  God 
knows,  they  are  deplorably  strangers  to  ;  and  those  unanswera- 
ble doubts  and  difficulties,  which,  over  their  cups  or  their  coffee, 
they  pretend  to  have  against  Christianity ;  persuade  but  the 
covetous  man  not  to  deify  his  money;  the  proud  man  not  to 
adore  himself ;  the  lascivious  man  to  throw  oft'  his  lewd  amours ; 
the  intemperate  man  to  abandon  his  revels ;  and  so  for  any  other  ' 
vice,  that  is  apt  to  abuse  and  pervert  the  mind  of  man  ;  and  I 
dare  undertake,  that  all  their  giant-like  objections  against  Chris- 
tian religion  shall  presently  vanish  and  quit  the  field.  For  he 
that  is  a  good  man,  is  three  quarters  of  his  way  towards  the 
being  a  good  Christian,  wheresoever  he  lives,  or  whatsoever  he 
is  called. 

2.  In  the  next  place,  we  learn  from  hence  the  most  effectual 
ways  and  means  of  proficiency  and  growth  in  the  knowledge  of 
the  great  and  profound  truths  of  religion,  and  how  to  make  us 
all  not  only  good  Christians,  but  also  expert  divines.  It  is  a 
knowledge,  that  men  are  not  so  much  to  study,  as  to  live  them- 
selves into  :  a  knowledge  that  passes  into  the  head  through  the 
heart.  I  have  heard  of  some,  that  in  their  latter  years,  through 
the  feebleness  of  their  limbs,  have  been  forced  to  study  upon 
their  knees :  and  I  think  it  might  well  become  the  youngest  and 
the  strongest  to  do  so  too.  Let  them  daily  and  incessantly  pray 
to  God  for  his  grace :  and  if  God  gives  grace,  they  may  be  sure 
that  knowledge  will  not  stay  long  behind  :  since  it  is  the  same 
spirit  and  principle  that  purifies  the  heart,  and  clarifies  the  under- 
standing. Let  all  their  inquiries  into  the  deep  and  mysterious 
points  of  theology  be  begun  and  carried  on  with  fervent  petitions 
to  God,  that  he  would  dispose  their  minds  to  direct  all  their 
skill  and  knowledge  to  the  promotion  of  a  good  life,  both  in 
themselves  and  others  ;  that  he  wrould  use  all  their  noblest  specu- 
lations, and  most  refined  notions,  only  as  instruments,  to  move 
and  set  to  work  the  great  principles  of  actions,  the  will  and  the 
affections ;  that  he  would  convince  them  of  the  infinite  vanity 
and  uselessness  of  all  that  learning,  that  makes  not  the  possessor 


why  Christ's  doctrine  was  rejected. 


103 


of  it  a  better  man  ;  that  he  would  keep  them  from  those  sins  that 
may  grieve  and  provoke  his  Holy  Spirit,  the  fountain  of  all  true 
light  and  knowledge,  to  withdraw  from  them,  and  to  seal  them  up 
under  darkness,  blindness,  and  stupidity  of  mind.  For  where  the 
heart  is  bent  upon,  and  held  under  the  power  of  any  vicious  course, 
though  Christ  himself  should  take  the  contrary  virtue  for  his 
doctrine,  and  do  a  miracle  before  such  a  one's  eyes,  for  its  applica- 
tion, yet  he  would  not  practically  gain  his  assent,  but  the  result  of 
all  would  end  in  a  non  persuadebis  etiamsi  persuaseris.  Few  con- 
sider what  a  degree  of  sottishness  and  confirmed  ignorance  men  may 
sin  themselves  into. 

This  was  the  case  of  the  Pharisees.  And  no  doubt  but  this  very 
consideration  also  gives  us  the  true  reason  and  full  explication  of 
that  notable  and  strange  passage  of  scripture,  in  Luke  xvi.,  and  the 
last  verse,  that  "  if  men  will  not  hear  Moses  and  the  prophets, 
neither  will  they  be  persuaded,  though  one  rose  from  the  dead." 
That  is,  where  a  strong,  inveterate  love  of  sin  has  made  any 
doctrine  or  proposition  wholly  unsuitable  to  the  hearL ;  no  argument 
or  demonstration,  no  nor  miracle  whatsoever,  shall  be  able  to  bring 
the  heart  cordially  to  close  with  and  receive  it.  Whereas,  on  the 
contrary,  if  the  heart  be  piously  disposed,  the  natural  goodness  of 
any  doctrine  is  enough  to  vouch  for  the  truth  of  it :  for  the  suitable- 
ness of  it  will  endear  it  to  the  will ;  and,  by  endearing  it  to  the  will, 
will  naturally  slide  it  into  the  assent  also.  For  in  morals,  as  well 
as  in  metaphysics,  there  is  nothing  really  good,  but  has  a  truth 
commensurate  to  its  goodness. 

The  truths  of  Christ  crucified  are  the  Christian's  philosophy,  and 
a  good  life  is  the  Christian's  logic  ;  that  great  instrumental,  intro- 
ductive  art  that  must  guide  the  mind  into  the  former.  And  where 
a  long  course  of  piety,  and  close  communion  with  God,  has  purged 
the  heart,  and  rectified  the  will,  and  made  all  things  ready  for  the 
reception  of  God's  Spirit ;  knowledge  will  break  in  upon  such  a 
soul,  like  the  sun  shining  in  his  full  might,  with  such  a  victorious 
light,  that  nothing  shall  be  able  to  resist  it. 

If  now,  at  length,  some  should  object  here,  that  from  what  has 
been  delivered,  it  will  follow,  that  the  most  pious  men  are  still  the 
most  knowing,  which  yet  seems  contrary  to  common  experience  and 
observation  ;  I  answer,  that  as  to  all  things  directly  conducing  and 
necessary  to  salvation,  there  is  no  doubt  but  they  are  so  ;  as  the 
meanest  common  soldier,  that  has  fought  often  in  an  army,  has  a 
truer  and  better  knowledge  of  war,  than  he  that  has  read  and  written 
whole  volumes  of  it,  but  never  was  in  any  battle. 

Practical  sciences  are  not  to  be  learned  but  in  the  way  of 
action.  It  is  experience  that  must  give  knowledge  in  the  Chris- 
tian profession,  as  well  as  in  all  others.  And  the  knowledge 
drawn  from  experience  is  quite  of  another  kind  from  that  which 
flows  from  speculation  or  discourse.  It  is  not  the  opinion,  but  the 
"  path  of  the  just,"  that  the  wisest  of  men  tells  us,  "  shines  more 


104 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VI. 


and  more  unto  a  perfect  day."  The  obedient,  and  the  men  of 
practice,  are  "  those  sons  of  light,"  that  shall  outgrow  all  their 
doubts  and  ignorances,  that  shall  "  ride  upon  these  clouds,"  and 
triumph  over  their  present  imperfections,  until  persuasion  pass  into 
knowledge,  and  knowledge  advance  into  assurance,  and  all  come 
at  length  to  be  completed  in  the  beatific  vision,  and  a  full  fruition 
of  those  joys  which  God  has  in  reserve  for  them,  whom  by  his 
grace  he  shall  prepare  for  glory. 

To  which  God,  infinitely  wrise,  holy,  and  just,  be  rendered  and 
ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion, 
both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


A  SERMON 


PREACHED  AT  THE  CONSECRATION  OF  A  CHAPEL,  1667. 


PREFACE. 

After  the  happy  expiration  of  those  times  which  had  reformed  so 
many  churches  to  the  ground,  and  in  which  men  used  to  express 
their  honour  to  God  and  their  allegiance  to  their  prince  the  same 
way,  demolishing  the  palaces  of  the  one,  and  the  temples  of  the  other ; 
it  is  now  our  glory  and  felicity,  that  God  has  changed  men's  tempers 
with  the  times,  and  made  a  spirit  of  building  succeed  a  spirit  of  pull- 
ing down:  by  a  miraculous  revolution,  reducing  many  from  the  head 
of  a  triumphant  rebellion  to  their  old  condition  of  masons,  smiths,  and 
carpenters,  that  in  this  capacity  they  might  repair  what  as  colonels 
and  captains  they  had  mined  and  defaced. 

But  still  it  is  strange  to  see  any  ecclesiastical  pile,  not  by  ecclesias- 
tical cost  and  influence,  rising  above  ground ;  especially  in  an  age  in 
which  men's  mouths  are  open  against  the  Church,  but  their  hands 
shut  towards  it ;  an  age  in  which,  respecting  the  generality  of  men, 
we  might  as  soon  expect  stones  to  be  made  bread,  as  to  be  made 
churches. 

But  the  more  epidemical  and  prevailing  this  evil  is,  the  more  ho- 
nourable are  those  who  stand  and  shine  as  exceptions  from  the  com- 
mon practice  :  and  may  such  places,  built  for  the  divine  worship, 
derive  an  honour  and  a  blessing  upon  the  head  of  the  builders,  as 
great  and  lasting  as  the  curse  and  infamy  that  never  fails  to  rest  upon 
the  sacrilegious  violators  of  them ;  and  a  greater,  I  am  sure  I  need 
not,  I  cannot  wish. 

Vol.  L— 14  105 


106 


SERMON  VII. 


WORSHIP. 

Psalm  lxxxvii.  2. 

God  hath  loved  the  gates  of  Sion  more  than  all  tlie  dwellings  of 

Jacob. 

The  comparison  here  exhibited  between  the  love  God  bore  to 
Sion,  the  great  place  of  his  solemn  worship,  and  that  which  he  bore 
to  the  other  dwellings  of  Israel,  imports,  as  all  other  comparisons 
do  in  the  superior  part  of  them,  two  things — difference  and  pre- 
eminence ;  and  accordingly,  I  cannot  more  commodiously  and 
naturally  contrive  the  prosecution  of  these  words,  than  by  casting 
the  sense  of  them  into  these  two  propositions  : 

I.  That  God  bears  a  different  respect  to  places  set  apart  and 
consecrated  to  his  worship,  from  what  he  bears  to  all  other  places 
designed  to  the  uses  of  common  life. 

II.  That  God  prefers  the  worship  paid  him  in  such  places,  above 
that  which  is  offered  him  in  any  other  places  whatsoever. 

I.  As  to  the  fonner  of  these,  this  difference  of  respect  borne  by 
God  to  such  places,  from  what  he  bears  to  others,  may  be  evinced 
these  three  several  ways  : 

1.  By  those  eminent  interposals  of  providence,  both  for  the 
erecting  and  preserving  of  such  places.  2.  By  those  notable  judg- 
ments shown  by  God  upon  the  violators  of  them.  3.  Lastly,  by 
declaring  the  ground  and  reason,  why  God  shows  such  a  different 
respect  to  those  places,  from  what  he  manifests  to  others.  Of  all 
which  in  their  order. 

1.  First  of  all  then,  Those  eminent  interposals  of  the  divine 
providence  for  the  erecting  and  preserving  such  places,  will  be  one 
pregnant  and  strong  argument  to  prove,  the  difference  of  God's 
respect  to  them,  and  to  others  of  common  use. 

That  providence  that  universally  casts  its  eye  over  all  the  parts 
of  the  creation,  is  yet  pleased  more  particularly  to  fasten  it  upon 
some.  God  made  all  the  world,  that  he  might  be  worshipped  in 
some  parts  of  the  world ;  and  therefore  in  the  first  and  most  early 
times  of  the  church,  what  care  did  he  manifest  to  have  such 
places  erected  to  his  honour?  Jacob  he  admonished  by  a  vision,  as 
by  a  messenger  from  heaven,  to  build  him  an  altar ;  and  then,  what 
awe  did  Jacob  express  to  it !  "  How  dreadful,"  says  he,  "  is  this 


god's  regard  to  places  of  worship. 


107 


place!  this  is  none  other  but  the  house  of  God."  What  parti- 
cular inspirations  were  there  upon  Aholiab  to  fit  him  to  work 
about  the  sanctuary!  The  Spirit  of  God  was  the  surveyor,  di- 
rector, and  manager  of  the  whole  business.  But,  above  all,  how 
exact,  and,  as  we  may  say,  with  reverence,  how  nice  was  God 
about  the  building  of  the  temple !  David,  though  a  man  of  most 
intimate  converse  and  acquaintance  with  God,  and  one  who  bore 
a  kingly  pre-eminence  over  others,  no  less  in  point  of  piety  than 
of  majesty,  after  he  had  made  such  rich,  such  vast,  and  almost 
incredible  provision  of  materials  for  the  building  of  the  temple  ; 
yet,  because  he  had  dipped  his  hands  in  blood,  though  but  the 
blood  of  God's  enemies,  had  the  glory  of  that  work  taken  out  of 
them,  and  was  not  permitted  to  lay  a  stone  in  that  sacred  pile ; 
but  the  whole  work  was  entirely  reserved  for  Solomon,  a  prince 
adorned  with  those  parts  of  mind  and  exalted  by  such  a  concur- 
rence of  all  prosperous  events  to  make  him  glorious  and  magnifi- 
cent ;  as  if  God  had  made  it  his  business  to  build  a  Solomon, 
that  Solomon  might  build  him  a  house.  To  which,  had  not  God 
bore  a  very  different  respect  from  what  he  bore  to  all  other  places, 
why  might  not  David  have  been  permitted  to  build  God  a  temple, 
as  well  as  to  rear  himself  a  palace  ?  Why  might  not  he,  who 
was  so  pious  as  to  design,  be  also  so  prosperous  as  to  finish  it  ? 
God  must  needs  have  set  a  more  than  ordinary  esteem  upon  that 
which  David,  the  man  after  his  own  heart,  the  darling  of  heaven, 
and  the  most  flaming  example  of  a  vigorous  love  to  God  that 
ever  was,  was  not  thought  fit  to  have  a  hand  in  it. 

And  to  proceed,  when,  after  a  long  tract  of  time,  the  sins  of 
Israel  had  even  unconsecrated  and  profaned  that  sacred  edifice, 
and  thereby  robbed  it  of  its  only  defence,  the  palladium  of  God's 
presence,  so  that  the  Assyrians  laid  it  even  with  the  ground  ;  yet 
after  that  a  long  captivity  and  affliction  had  made  the  Jews  fit 
again  for  so  great  a  privilege  as  a  public  place  to  worship  God  in, 
how  did  God  put  it  into  the  heart,  even  of  a  heathen  prince,  to 
promote  the  building  of  a  second  temple  !  How  was  the  work 
undertaken  and  carried  on  amidst  all  the  unlikelihoods  and  discou- 
raging circumstances  imaginable !  the  builders  holding  the  sword 
in  one  hand,  to  defend  the  trowel  working  with  the  other  ;  yet 
finished  and  completed  it  was,  under  the  conduct  and  protection 
of  a  peculiar  providence,  that  made  the  instruments  of  that  great 
design  prevalent  and  victorious,  and  all  those  mountains  of  op- 
position to  become  plains  before  Zerubbabel. 

And  lastly,  when  Herod  the  Great,  whose  magnificence  served 
him  instead  of  piety  to  prompt  him  to  an  action,  if  not  in  him 
religious,  yet  heroic  at  least,  thought  fit  to  pull  down  that  temple, 
and  to  build  one  much  more  glorious,  and  fit  for  the  Saviour  of 
the  world  to  appear  and  preach  in.  Josephus,  in  his  fifteenth 
book  of  the  Jewish  Antiquities,  and  the  fourteenth  chapter,  says, 
"That  during  all, the  time  of  its  building,  there  fell  not  so  much 


108 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VII. 


as  a'  shower  to  interrupt  the  work  ;  but  the  rain  still  fell  by  night, 
that  it  might  not  retard  the  business  of  the  day."  If  this  were 
so,  I  am  not  of  the  number  of  those  who  can  ascribe  such  great 
and  strange  passages  to  chance,  or  satisfy  my  reason  in  assigning 
any  other  cause  of  this,  but  the  kindness  of  God  himself  to  the 
place  of  his  worship  ;  making  the  common  influences  of  heaven 
to  stop  their  course,  and  pay  a  kind  of  homage  to  the  rearing  of 
so  sacred  a  structure.  Though  I  must  confess,  that  David  being 
prohibited,  and  Herod  permitted  to  build  God  a  temple,  might 
seem  strange,  did  not  the  absoluteness  of  God's  good  pleasure 
satisfy  all  sober  minds  of  the  reasonableness  of  God's  proceedings, 
though  never  so  strange  and  unaccountable. 

Add  to  all  this,  that  the  extraordinary  manifestations  of  God's 
presence  were  still  in  the  sanctuary :  the  cloud,  the  urim  and 
thummim,  and  the  oracular  answers  of  God,  were  graces  and 
prerogatives  proper  and  peculiar  to  the  sacredness  of  this  place ; 
these  were  the  dignities  that  made  it,  as  it  were,  the  presence- 
chamber  of  the  Almighty,  the  room  of  audience,  where  he  declared 
that  he  would  receive  and  answer  petitions  from  all  places  under 
heaven,  and  where  he  displayed  his  royalty  and  glory.  There  was 
no  parlour  or  dining-room  in  all  the  dwellings  of  Jacob,  that  he 
vouchsafed  the  like  privileges  to.  And  moreover,  how  full  are 
God's  expressions  to  this  purpose !  "  Here  have  I  placed  my 
name,  and  here  will  I  dwell,  for  I  have  a  delight  therein." 

But  to  evidence  how  different  a  respect  God  bears  to  things 
consecrated  to  his  own  worship,  from  what  he  bears  to  all  other 
things,  let  that  one  eminent  passage  of  Corah,  Dathan,  and 
Abiram,  be  proof  beyond  all  exception ;  in  which,  the  censers  of 
those  wretches,  who,  I  am  sure,  could  derive  no  sanctity  to  them 
from  their  own  persons  ;  yet,  upon  this  account,  that  they  had 
been  consecrated  by  the  offering  incense  in  them,  were,  by  God's 
special  command,  sequestered  from  all  common  use,  and  appoint- 
ed to  be  beaten  into  broad  plates,  and  fastened  as  a  covering  upon 
the  altar,  Numb,  xvi.  38,  "  The  censers  of  these  sinners  against 
their  own  souls,  let  them  make  broad  plates  for  a  covering  of  the 
altar :  for  they  offered  them  before  the  Lord,  therefore  they  are 
hallowed."  It  seems  this  one  single  use  left  such  an  indelible 
sacredness  upon  them,  that  neither  the  villany  of  the  persons,  nor 
the  impiety  of  the  design,  could  be  a  sufficient  reason  to  unhal- 
low  and  degrade  them  to  the  same  common  use  that  other  vessels 
may  be  applied  to.  And  the  argument  holds  equally  good  for 
consecration  of  places.  The  apostle  would  have  no  revelling  or 
junketing  upon  the  altar,  which  had  been  used,  and  by  that  use 
consecrated  to  the  celebration  of  a  more  spiritual  and  divine  re- 
past: "  Have  ye  not  houses  to  eat  and  to  drink  in?  or  despise  ye 
the  church  of  God?'  says  St.  Paul,  1  Cor.  xi.  22.  It  would 
have  been  no  answer  to  have  told  the  apostle,  What !  is  not  the 
church  stone  and  wood  as  well  as  other  buildings  ?  and  is  there  any 


god's  regard  to  places  of  worshd?. 


109 


such  peculiar  sanctity  in  this  parcel  of  brick  and  mortar  ?  and 
must  God,  who  has  declared  himself  "  no  respecter  of  persons," 
be  now  made  a  respecter  of  places  ?  No,  this  is  the  language  of 
a  more  spiritualized  and  refined  piety  than  the  apostles  and  pri- 
mitive Christians  were  acquainted  with.  And  thus  much  for  the 
first  argument,  brought  to  prove  the  different  respect  that  God 
bears  to  things  and  places  consecrated  and  set  apart  to  his  own 
worship,  from  what  he  bears  to  others. 

2.  The  second  argument  for  the  proof  of  the  same  assertion,  shall 
be  taken  from  those  remarkable  judgments  shown  by  God,  upon  the 
violators  of  things  consecrated  and  set  apart  to  holy  uses. 

A  coal,  we  know,  snatched  from  the  altar,  once  fired  the  nest 
of  the  eagle,  the  royal  and  commanding  bird  ;  and  so  has  sacri- 
lege consumed  the  families  of  princes,  broken  sceptres,  and  de- 
stroyed kingdoms.  We  read  how  the  victorious  Philistines  were 
worsted  by  the  captivated  ark,  which  foraged  their  country  more 
than  a  conquering  army ;  they  were  not  able  to  cohabit  with  that 
holy  thing ;  it  was  like  a  plague  in  their  bowels,  and  a  curse  in 
the  midst  of  them  ;  so  that  they  were  forced  to  restore  their 
prey,  and  to  turn  their  triumphs  into  supplications.  Poor  Uzzah 
for  but  touching  the  ark,  though  out  of  care  and  zeal  for  its  pre- 
servation, was  struck  dead  with  a  blow  from  heaven :  he  had  no 
right  to  touch  it ;  and  therefore  his  very  zeal  was  a  sin,  and  his 
care  a  usurpation  ;  nor  could  the  purpose  of  his  heart  excuse 
the  error  of  his  hand.  Nay,  in  the  promulgation  of  the  Mosaic 
law,  if  so  much  as  a  brute  beast  touched  the  mountain,  the  bow 
of  vengeance  was  ready,  and  it  was  to  be  struck  through  with  a 
dart,  and  to  die  a  sacrifice  for  a  fault  it  could  not  understand. 

But  to  give  some  higher  and  clearer  instances  of  the  divine 
judgments  upon  sacrilegious  persons.  In  1  Kings  xiv.  26,  we 
find  Shishak,  king  of  Egypt,  spoiling  and  robbing  Solomon's 
temple  ;  and  that  we  may  know  what  became  of  him,  we  must 
take  notice  that  Josephus  called  him  Susac,  and  tells  us  that 
Herodotus  calls  him  Sesostris  ;  and  withal  reports,  that  imme- 
diately after  his  return  from  this  very  expedition,  such-  disastrous 
calami des  befell  his  family,  that  he  burnt  two  of  his  children  him- 
self ;  that  his  brother  conspired  against  him  ;  and  lastly,  that  his 
son,  who  succeeded  him,  was  struck  blind,  yet  not  so  blind,  in  his 
understanding  at  least,  but  that  he  saw  the  cause  of  all  these  mis- 
chiefs ;  and,  therefore,  to  redeem  his  father's  sacrilege,  gave  more 
and  richer  things  to  temples,  than  his  father  had  stolen  from 
them :  though,  by  the  way,  it  may  seem  to  be  a  strange  method 
of  repairing  an  injury  done  to  the  true  God,  by  adorning  the 
temples  of  the  false.  See  the  same  sad  effect  of  sacrilege  in  the 
reat  Nebuchadnezzar  ;  he  plunders  the  temple  of  God,  and  we 
nd  the  fatal  doom  that  afterwards  befell  him  ;  he  lost  his  king- 
dom, and  by  a  new  unheard-of  judgment,  was  driven  from  the 
society  and  converse  of  men,  to  table  with  the  beasts,  and  to 

K 


110 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  vii. 


graze  with  oxen  ;  the  impiety  and  inhumanity  of  his  sin  making 
him  a  fitter  companion  for  them,  than  for  those  to  whom  religion 
is  more  natural  than  reason  itself.  And  since  it  was  his  un- 
happiness  to  transmit  his  sin,  together  with  his  kingdom,  to  his 
son,  while  Belshazzar  was  quaffing  in  the  sacred  vessels  of  the 
temple,  which,  in  his  pride,  he  sent  for  to  abuse  with  his  impious 
sensuality,  he  sees  his  fatal  sentence,  writ  by  the  finger  of  God, 
in  the  very  midst  of  his  profane  mirth.  And  he  stays  not  long 
for  the  execution  of  it,  that  very  night  losing  his  kingdom  and 
his  life  too.  And  that  which  makes  the  story  direct  for  our  pur- 
pose is,  that  all  this  comes  upon  him  for  profaning  those  sacred 
vessels  ;  God  himself  tells  us  so  much  by  the  mouth  of  his  prophet 
in  Dan.  v.  23,  where  this  only  sin  is  charged  upon  him,  and  par- 
ticularly made  the  cause  of  his  sudden  and  utter  ruin. 

These  were  violators  of  the  first  temple ;  and  those  that  pro- 
faned and  abused  the  second  sped  no  better.  And  for  this,  take 
for  instance  that  first-born  of  sin  and  sacrilege,  Antiochus  ;  the 
story  of  whose  profaning  God's  house  you  may  read  in  the  first 
book  of  Maccabees,  chap.  i.  And  you  may  read  also  at  large 
what  success  he  found  after  it,  in  the  sixth  chapter,  where  the 
author  tells  us,  that  he  never  prospered  afterwards  in  any  thing, 
but  all  his  designs  were  frustrated,  his  captains  slain,  his  armies 
defeated  ;  and  lastly,  himself  falls  sick,  and  dies  a  miserable 
death ;  and  (which  is  most  considerable  as  to  the  present  business) 
when  all  these  evils  befell  him,  his  own  conscience  tells  him  that 
it  was  even  for  this  that  he  had  most  sacrilegiously  pillaged  and 
invaded  God's  house,  1  Mace.  vi.  12,  13,  "  Now  I  remember," 
says  he,  "  the  evils  I  did  at  Jerusalem,  how  I  took  the  vessels  of 
gold  and  silver;  I  perceive,  therefore,  that  for  this  cause  these 
evils  are  come  upon  me  ;  and  behold,  I  perish  for  grief  in  a 
strange  land."  The  sinner's  conscience  is,  for  the  most  part,  the 
best  expositor  of  the  mind  of  God,  under  any  judgment  or 
affliction. 

Take  another  notable  instance  in  Nicanor,  who  purposed  and 
threatened  to  burn  the  temple,  1  Mace.  vii.  35 ;  and  a  curse 
lights  upon  him  presently  after ;  his  great  army  is  utterly  ruined, 
he  himself  slain  in  it,  and  his  head  and  right  hand  cut  off,  and 
hung  up  before  Jerusalem.  Where  two  things  are  remarkable 
in  the  text :  1.  That  he  himself  was  first  slain  ;  a  thing  that  does 
not  usually  befall  a  general  of  an  army.  2.  That  the  Jews 
prayed  against  him  to  God,  and  desired  God  to  destroy  Nicanor, 
for  the  injury  done  to  his  sanctuary  only,  naming  no  sin  else. 
And  God  ratified  their  prayers  by  the  judgment  they  brought 
down  upon  the  head  of  him  whom  they  prayed  against.  God 
stopped  his  blasphemous  mouth,  and  cut  off  his  sacrilegious  hand ; 
and  made  them  teach  the  world  what  it  was  for  the  most  potent 
sinner  under  heaven  to  threaten  the  almighty  God,  especially  in 
his  own  house,  for  so  was  the  temple. 


GOD'S  REGARD  TO  PLACES'  OF  WORSHIP. 


Ill 


But  now,  lest  some  should  puff  at  these  instances,  as  being 
such  as  were  under  a  different  economy  of  religion,  in  which  God 
was  more  tender  of  the  shell  and  ceremonious  part  of  his  wor- 
ship, and  consequently  not  directly  pertinent  to  ours;  therefore, 
to  show  that  all  profanation  and  invasion  of  things  sacred,  is  an 
offence  against  the  eternal  law  of  nature,  and  not  against  any 
positive  institution  after  a  time  to  expire,  we  need  not  go  many 
nations  off,  nor  many  ages  back,  to  see  the  vengeance  of  God 
upon  some  families,  raised  upon  the  ruins  of  churches,  and 
enriched  with  the  spoils  of  sacrilege,  gilded  with  the  name  of 
reformation.  And,  for  the  most  part,  so  unhappy  have  been  the 
purchasers  of  church  lands,  that  the  world  is  not  now  to  seek  for 
an  argument,  from  a  long  experience,  to  convince  it,  that  though 
in  such  purchases,  men  have  usually  the  cheapest  pennyworths, 
yet  they  have  not  always  the  best  bargains ;  for  the  holy  thing 
has  stuck  fast  to  their  sides  like  a  fatal  shaft,  and  the  stone  has 
cried  out  of  the  consecrated  walls  they  have  lived  within,  for  a 
judgment  upon  the  head  of  the  sacrilegious  intruder ;  and  Heaven 
has  heard  the  cry,  and  made  good  the  curse.  So  that  when  the 
heir  of  a  blasted  family  has  risen  up  and  promised  fair,  and  per- 
haps rlourished  for  some  time  upon  the  stock  of  excellent  parts 
and  great  favour ;  yet  at  length  a  cross  event  has  certainly  met 
and  stopped  him  in  the  career  of  his  fortunes,  so  that  he  has  ever 
after  withered  and  declined,  and  in  the  end  come  to  nothing,  or 
to  that  which  is  worse.  So  certainly  does  that  which  some  call 
blind  superstition,  take  aim  when  it  shoots  a  curse  at  the  sacrile- 
gious person.  But  I  shall  not  engage  in  the  odious  task  of 
recounting  the  families,  which  this  sin  has  blasted  with  a  curse ; 
only  I  shall  give  one  eminent  instance  in  some  persons  who  had 
sacrilegiously  procured  the  demolishing  of  some  places  consecrated 
to  holy  uses. 

And  for  this  (to  show  the  world  that  Papists  can  commit 
sacrilege  as  freely  as  they  can  object  it  to  Protestants),  it  shall  be  in 
that  great  cardinal  and  minister  of  state,  Wolsey,  who  obtained 
leave  of  Pope  Clement  the  seventh  to  demolish  forty-  religious 
houses ;  which  he  did  by  the  service  of  five  men,  to  whose  con- 
duct he  committed  the  effecting  of  that  business;  every  one  of 
which  came  to  a  sad  and  fatal  end.  For  the  Pope  himself  was  ever 
after  an  unfortunate  prince,  Rome  being  twice  taken  and  sacked 
in  his  reign,  himself  taken  prisoner,  and  at  length  dying  a 
miserable  death.  Wolsey,  as  it  is  known,  incurred  a  premunire, 
forfeited  his  honour,  estate,  and  life,  which  he  ended,  some  say 
by  poison,  but  certainly  in  great  calamity. 

And  for  the  five  men  employed  by  him,  two  of  them  quarrelled, 
one  of  which  was  slain,  and  the  other  hanged  for  it;  the  third 
drowned  himself  in  a  well ;  the  fourth,  though  rich,  came  at 
length  to  be£  his  bread ;  and  the  fifth  was  miserably  stabbed  to 
death  at  Dublin  in  Ireland. 


112 


DR.  SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VII. 


This  was  the  tragical  end  of  a  knot  of  sacrilegious  persons  from 
highest  to  lowest.  The  consideration  of  which  and  the  like 
passages,  one  would  think,  should  make  men  keep  their  fingers 
off  from  the  church's  patrimony,  though  not  out  of  love  to  the 
church,  (which  few  men  have,)  yet  at  least  out  of  love  to  them- 
selves, which,  I  suppose,  few  want. 

Nor  is  that  instance  in  one  of  another  religion  to  be  passed 
over,  (so  near  it  is  to  the  former  passage  of  Nicanor,)  of  a  com- 
mander in  the  parliament's  rebel  army,  who  coming  to  rifle  and 
deface  the  cathedral  at  Lichfield,  solemnly,  at  the  head  of  his 
troops,  begged  of  God  to  show  some  remarkable  token  of  his 
approbation,  or  dislike,  of  the  work  they  were  going  about. 
Immediately  after  which,  looking  out  at  a  window,  he  was  shot 
in  the  forehead  by  a  deaf  and  dumb  man ;  and  this  was  on  St. 
Chad's  day,  the  name  of  which  saint  that  church  bore,  being 
dedicated  to  God  in  memory  of  the  same.  Where  we  see,  that 
as  he  asked  of  God  a  sign,  so  God  gave  him  one,  signing  him  in 
the  forehead,  and  that  with  such  a  mark  as  he  is  like  to  be  known 
by  to  all  posterity. 

There  is  nothing  that  the  united  voice  of  all  history  proclaims 
so  loud  as  the  certain  unfailing  curse  that  has  pursued  and  over- 
taken sacrilege.  Make  a  catalogue  of  all  the  prosperous  sacrile- 
gious persons  that  have  been  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to 
this  day,  and  I  believe  they  will  come  within  a  very  narrow  com- 
pass, and  be  repeated  much  sooner  than  the  alphabet. 

Religion  claims  a  great  interest  in  the  world,  even  as  great  as 
its  object  God,  and  the  souls  of  men.  And  since  God  has 
resolved  not  to  alter  the  course  of  nature,  and  upon  principles  of 
nature  religion  will  scarce  be  supported  without  the  encouragement 
of  the  ministers  of  it ;  Providence,  where  it  loves  a  nation,  concerns 
itself  to  own  and  assert  the  interest  of  religion  by  blasting  the 
spoilers  of  religious  persons  and  places.  Many  have  gaped  at  the 
church  revenues ;  but,  before  they  could  swallow  them,  have  had 
their  mouths  stopped  in  the  churchyard. 

And  thus  much  for  the  second  argument,  to  prove  the  different 
respect  that  God  bears  to  things  consecrated  to  holy  uses ; 
namely,  his  signal  judgments  upon  the  sacrilegious  violators 
of  them. 

3.  I  descend  now  to  the  third  and  last  thing  proposed  for  the 
proof  of  the  first  proposition,  which  is,  to  assign  the  ground  and 
reason  why  God  shows  such  a  concern  for  these  things.  Touch- 
ing which  we  are  to  observe,  (1.) -Negatively,  that  it  is  no  worth 
or  sanctity  naturally  inherent  in  the  things  themselves,  that  either 
does  or  can  procure  them  this  esteem  from  God ;  for  by  nature 
all  things  have  an  equally  common  use.  Nature  freely  and  in- 
differently opens  the  bosom  of  the  universe  to  all  mankind  ;  and 
the  very  sanctum  sanctorum  had  originally  no  more  sacredness  in 
it,  than  the  valley  of  the  son  of  Hinnom,  or  any  other  place  in 


god's  regard  to  places  of  worship. 


113 


Judea.  (2.)  Positively,  therefore,  the  sole  ground  and  reason  of 
this  different  esteem  vouchsafed  by  God  to  consecrated  things 
and  places,  is  this,  that  he  has  the  sole  property  of  them. 

It  is  a  known  maxim,  that  in  Deo  sunt  jura  omnia;  and  conse- 
quently, that  he  is  the  proprietor  of  all  things,  by  that  grand 
and  transcendant  right  founded  upon  creation.  Yet  notwithstand- 
ing, he  may  be  said  to  have  a  greater,  because  a  sole  property 
in  some  things,  for  that  he  permits  not  the  use  of  them  to  men,  to 
whom  yet  he  has  granted  the  free  use  of  all  other  things.  Now 
this  property  may  be  founded  upon  a  double  ground. 

First,  God's  own  fixing  upon,  and  institution  of  a  place  or 
thing  to  his  peculiar  use.  When  he  shall  say  to  the  sons  of 
men,  as  he  spoke  to  Adam  concerning  the  forbidden  fruit,  Of  all 
things  and  places  that  I  have  enriched  the  universe  with,  you 
may  freely  make  use  for  your  own  occasions ;  but  as  for  this 
spot  of  ground,  this  person,  this  thing,  I  have  selected  and 
appropriated,  I  have  enclosed  it  to  myself  and  my  own  use ; 
and  I  will  endure  no  sharer,  no  rival  or  companion  in  it ;  he 
that  invades  them,  usurps,  and  shall  bear  the  guilt  of  his  usurpa- 
tion. Now,  upon  this  account,  the  gates  of  Sion,  and  the  tribe 
of  Levi,  became  God's  property.  He  laid  his  hand  upon  them, 
and  said,  "  These  are  mine." 

Secondly,  The  other  ground  of  God's  sole  property  in  any 
thing  or  place,  is  the  gift,  or  rather  the  return  of  it  made  by  man 
to  God  ;  by  which  act  he  relinquishes  and  delivers  back  to  God 
all  his  right  to  the  use  of  that  thing,  which  before  had  been 
freely  granted  him  by  God.  After  which  donation,  there  is  an 
absolute  change  and  alienation  made  of  the  property  of  the  thing 
given,  and  that  as  to  the  use  of  it  too ;  which  being  so  alienated, 
a  man  has  no  more  to  do  with  it,  than  with  a  thin^  bouoht  with 
another  s  money,  or  got  with  the  sweat  of  another's  brow. 

And  this  is  the  ground  of  God's  sole  property  in  things, 
persons,  and  places,  now  under  the  gospel.  Men  by  free  gift 
consign  over  a  place  to  the  divine  worship,  and  thereby  have  no 
more  right  to  apply  it  to  another  use,  than  they  have  to  make 
use  of  another  man's  goods.  He  that  has  devoted  himself  to  the 
service  of  God  in  the  Christian  priesthood,  has  given  himself  to 
God,  and  so  can  no  more  dispose  of  himself  in  an  another  em- 
ployment, than,  he  can  dispose  of  a  thing  that  he  has  sold  or 
freely  given  away.  Now  in  passing  a  thing  away  to  another  by 
the  deed  of  gift,  two  things  are  required : 

1.  A  surrender  on  the  giver's  part,  of  all  the  property  and 
right  he  has  in  the  thing  given.  And  to  the  making  of  a  thing 
or  place  sacred,  this  surrender  of  it  by  its  right  owner  is  so 
necessary,  that  all  the  rites  of  consecration,  used  upon  a  place 
against  the  owner's  will,  and  without  his  giving  up  his  property, 
make  not  that  place  sacred,  forasmuch  as  the  property  of  it  is 
not  hereby  altered ;  and  therefore,  says  the  canonist,  *  Qui  sine 

Vol  I. — 15  k  2 


114 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VII. 


voluntate  Domini  consecrate  r  ever  a  desecrat.  The  like  judgment 
passed  that  learned  bishop  Synesius  upon  a  place  so  consecrated : 
Ovb'  itpbv  ov8i  fxiv  6ot,ov  %yoi/xai.  "  I  account  it  not,"  says  he,  "  for 
any  holy  thing." 

For  we  must  know,  that  consecration  makes  not  a  place  sacred, 
any  more  than  coronation  makes  a  king ;  but  only  solemnly 
declares  it  so.  It  is  the  gift  of  the  owner  of  it  to  God,  which 
makes  it  to  be  solely  God's,  and  consequently  sacred  ;  after  which 
every  violation  of  it  is  as  really  sacrilege,  as  to  conspire  against 
the  king  is  treason  before  the  solemnity  of  his  coronation.  And 
moreover,  as  consecration  makes  not  a  thing  sacred  without  the 
owner's  gift,  so  the  owner's  gift  of  itself  alone  makes  a  thing 
sacred  without  the  ceremonies  of  consecration :  for  we  know  that 
tithes  and  lands  given  to  God  are  never,  and  plate,  vestments, 
and  other  sacred  utensils  are  seldom  consecrated ;  yet  certain  it  is, 
that  after  the  donation  of  them  to  the  church,  it  is  as  really 
sacrilege  to  steal,  or  alienate  them  from  those  sacred  uses,  to 
which  they  were  dedicated  by  the  donors,  as  it  is  to  pull  down  a 
church,  or  turn  it  into  a  stable. 

2.  As  in  order  to  the  passing  away  a  thing  by  gift,  there  is 
required  a  surrender  of  all  right  to  it  on  his  part  that  gives,  so 
there  is  required  also  an  acceptation  of  it  on  his  part  to  whom 
it  is  given :  for  giving  being  a  relative  action  (and  so  requiring 
a  correlative  to  answer  it) ;  giving  on  one  part  transfers  no  pro- 
perty, unless  there  be  an  accepting  on  the  other ;  for  as  volenti 
non  Jit  injuria,  so  in  this  case,  nolenti  non  Jit  benejicium. 

And  if  it  be  now  asked,  how  God  can  be  said  to  accept  what 
we  give,  since  we  are  not  able  to  transact  with  him  in  person  ; 
to  this  I  answer,  1.  That  we  may  and  do  converse  with  God  in 
person  really,  and  to  all  the  purposes  of  giving  and  receiving, 
though  not  visibly :  for  natural  reason  will  evince,  that  God  will 
receive  testimonies  of  honour  from  his  creatures ;  amongst  which, 
the  homage  of  offerings,  and  the  parting  with  a  right,  is  a  very 
great  one.  And  where  a  gift  is  suitable  to  the  person  to  whom  it 
is  offered,  and  no  refusal  of  it  testified  ;  silence  in  that  case  (even 
amongst  those  who  transact  visibly  and  corporally  with  one  another) 
is,  by  the  general  voice  of  reason,  reputed  an  acceptance:  and 
therefore  much  more  ought  we  to  conclude  that  God  accepts 
of  a  thing  suitable  for  him  to  receive,  and  for  us  to  give,  where 
he  does  not  declare  his  refusal  and  disallowance  of  it.  But,  2.  I 
add  further,  That  we  may  transact  with  God  in  the  person  of 
his  and  Christ's  substitute,  the  bishop,  to  whom  the  deed  of  gift 
ought,  and  uses  to  be  delivered  by  the  owner  of  the  thing  given, 
in  a  formal  instrument,  signed,  sealed,  and  legally  attested  by 
witnesses,  wherein  he  resigns  up  all  his  right  and  property  in 
the  thing  to  be  consecrated :  and  the  bishop  is  as  really  vicarius 
Christi  to  receive  this  from  us  in  Christ's  behalf,  as  the  Levitical 
priest  was  vicarius  Dei  to  the  Jews,  to  manage  all  transactions 
between  God  and  them. 


god's  regard  to  places  of  worship. 


115 


These  two  things  therefore  concurring,  the  gift  of  the  owner, 
and  God's  acceptance  of  it,  either  immediately  by  himself,  which 
we  rationally  presume,  or  mediately  by  the  hand  of  the  bishop, 
which  is  visibly  done  before  us,  is  that  which  vests  the  sole  pro- 
perty of  a  thing  or  place  in  God.  If  it  be  now  asked,  Of  what 
use  then  is  consecration,  if  a  thing  were  sacred  before  it  ?  I 
answer,  Of  very  much ;  even  as  much  as  coronation  to  a  king, 
which  confers  no  royal  authority  upon  him,  but  by  so  solemn  a 
declaration  of  it,  imprints  a  deeper  awe  and  reverence  of  it  in  the 
people's  minds,  a  thing  surely  of  no  small  moment.  And,  2. 
The  bishop's  solemn  benediction  and  prayers  to  God  for  a  blessing 
upon  those  who  shall  seek  him  in  such  sacred  places,  cannot 
but  be  supposed  a  direct  and  most  effectual  means  to  procure 
a  blessing  from  God  upon  those  persons  who  shall  address  them- 
selves to  him  there,  as  they  ought  to  do.  And  surely,  this  also 
vouches  the  great  reason  of  the  episcopal  consecration.  Add  to 
this,  in  the  third  place,  that  all  who  ever  had  any  awful  sense  of 
religion  and  religious  matters  (whether  Jews  or  Christians,  or 
even  heathens  themselves)  have  ever  used  solemn  dedications  and 
-consecra'ions  of  things  set  apart  and  designed  for  divine  worship  ; 
which  surely  could  never  have  been  so  universally  practised,  had 
not  right  reason  dictated  the  high  expediency  and  great  use  of 
such  practices. 

Eusebius,  the  earliest  church  historian,  in  the  tenth  book  of 
his  Ecclesiastical  History,  as  also  in  the  Life  of  Constantine, 
speaks  of  these  consecrations  of  churches,  as  of  things  generally 
in  use,  and  withal  sets  down  those  actions  particularly  of  which 
they  consisted,  styling  them  ©fortpfrtstj  ix*kMt*s  ^s^ovf,  "  laws  or 
customs  of  the  church  becoming  God."  What  the  Greek  and 
Latin  churches  used  to  do,  may  be  seen  in  their  pontificals, 
containing  the  set  forms  for  these  consecrations ;  though  indeed, 
for  these  six  or  seven  last  centuries,  full  of  many  tedious,  super- 
fluous, and  ridiculous  fopperies ;  setting  aside  all  which,  if  also 
our  liturgy  had  a  set  form  for  the  consecration  of  places,  as  it 
has  of  persons,  perhaps  it  would  be  never  the  less  perfect.  Now, 
from  what  has  been  above  discoursed  of  the  ground  of  God's  sole 
property  in  things  set  apart  for  his  service,  we  come  at  length  to 
see  how  all  things  given  to  the  church,  whether  houses,  or  lands, 
or  tithes,  belong  to  churchmen ;  they  are  but  usufructuarii,  and 
have  only  the  use  of  these  things,  the  property  and  fee  remaining 
wholly  in  God ;  and  consequently,  the  alienating  of  them  is  a 
robbing  of  God:  Mai.  hi.  8,  9, '"Ye  are  cursed  with  a  curse; 
for  ye  have  robbed  me,  even  this  whole  nation,  in  tithes  and 
offerings."  If  it  was  God  that  was  robbed,  it  was  God  also  that 
was  the  owner  of  what  was  taken  away  in  the  robbery :  even  our 
own  common  law  speaks  as  much ;  for  so  says  our  Magna  Charta 
in  the  first  chapter,  Conccssimus  Deo — quod  ecclesia  Aytglicana 
libera  erit,  &c.     Upon  which  words,  that  great  lawyer,  in  his 


116 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VII. 


Institutes,  comments  thus :  "  When  any  thing  is  granted  for  God, 
it  is  deemed  in  law  to  be  granted  to  God ;  and  whatsoever  is 
granted  to  the  church  for  his  honour,  and  the  maintenance  of  his 
service,  is  granted  for  and  to  God." 

The  same  also  appears  from  those  forms  of  expression,  in  which 
the  donation  of  sacred  things  usually  ran :  as  Deo  omnipotenti 
hac  prcesente  charta  donavimus,  with  the  like.  But  most  undeniably 
is  this  proved  by  this  one  argument :  That  in  case  a  bishop  should 
commit  treason  or  felony,  and  thereby  forfeit  his  estate,  with  his 
life  ;  yet  the  lands  of  his  bishopric  become  not  forfeit,  but  remain 
still  in  the  church,  and  pass  entire  to  his  successor:  which  suffi- 
ciently shows  that  they  were  none  of  his. 

It  being  therefore  thus  proved,  that  God  is  the  sole  proprietor 
of  all  sacred  things  or  places ;  I  suppose  his  peculiar  property  in 
them  is  an  abundantly  pregnant  reason  of  that  different  respect 
that  he  bears  to  them.  For  is  not  the  meum,  and  the  separate 
property  of  a  thing,  the  great  cause  of  its  endearment  amongst  all 
mankind  ?  Does  any  one  respect  a  common,  as  much  as  he  does 
his  garden?  or  the  gold  that  lies  in  the  bowels  of  a  mine,  as 
much  as  that  which  he  has  in  his  purse  ? 

I  have  now  finished  the  first  proposition  drawn  from  the  words ; 
namely,  £  That  God  bears  a  different  respect  to  places  set  apart 
and  consecrated  to  his  worship,  from  what  he  bears  to  all  other 
places  designed  to  the  uses  of  common  life and  also  shown  the 
reason  why  he  does  so.  I  proceed  now  to  the  second  proposition ; 
which  is,  That  God  prefers  the  worship  paid  him  in  such  places, 
above  that  which  is  offered  him  in  any  other  places  whatsoever ; 
and  that  for  these  reasons : 

1.  Because  such  places  are  naturally  apt  to  excite  a  greater 
reverence  and  devotion  in  the  discharge  of  divine  service,  than 
places  of  common  use.  The  place  properly  reminds  a  man  of 
the  business  of  the  place,  and  strikes  a  kind  of  awe  into  the 
thoughts,  when  they  reflect  upon  that  great  and  sacred  Majesty 
they  use  to  treat  and  converse  with  there :  they  find  the  same 
holy  consternation  upon  themselves,  that  Jacob  did  at  his  conse- 
crated Bethel,  which  he  called  "  the  gate  of  heaven :"  and  if  such 
places  are  so,  then  surely  a  daily  expectation  at  the  gate  is  the 
readiest  way  to  gain  admittance  into  the  house. 

It  has  been  the  advice  of  some  spiritual  persons,  that  such  as 
were  able  should  set  apart  some  certain  place  in  their  dwellings 
for  private  devotions  only,  which  if  they  constantly  performed 
there,  and  nothing  else,  their  very  entrance  into  it  would  tell 
them  what  they  were  to  do  in  it,  and  quickly  make  their  cham- 
ber-thoughts their  table-thoughts,  and  their  jolly,  worldly,  but 
much  more  their  sinful  thoughts  and  purposes,  fly  out  of  their 
hearts. 

For  is  there  any  man  (whose  heart  has  not  shaken  off  all  sense 
of  what  is  sacred)  who  finds  himself  no  otherwise  affected,  when 


god's  regard  to  places  of  worship. 


117 


he  enters  into  a  church,  than  when  he  enters  his  parlour  or 
chamber?  If  he  does,  for  ought  I  know,  he  is  fitter  to  be  there 
always  than  in  a  church. 

The  mind  of  man,  even  in  spirituals,  acts  with  a  corporeal 
dependence,  and  so  is  helped  or  hindered  in  its  operations,  accord- 
ing to  the  different  quality  of  external  objects  that  incur  into  the 
senses.  And  perhaps,  sometimes  the  sight  of  the  altar,  and  those 
decent  preparations  for  the  work  of  devotion,  may  compose  and 
recover  the  wandering  mind  much  more  effectually  than  a  sermon, 
or  a  rational  discourse :  for  these  things,  in  a  manner,  preach  to 
the  eye,  when  the  ear  is  dull,  and  will  not  hear ;  and  the  eye 
dictates  to  the  imagination,  and  that  at  last  moves  the  affections. 
And  if  these  little  impulses  set  the  great  wheels  of  devotion  on 
work,  the  largeness  and  height  of  that  shall  not  at  all  be  prejudiced 
by  the  smallness  of  its  occasion.  If  the  fire  burns  bright  and 
vigorously,  it  is  no  matter  by  what  means  it  was  at  first  kindled ; 
there  is  the  same  force,  and  the  same  refreshing  virtue  in  it, 
kindled  by  a  spark  from  a  flint,  as  if  it  were  kindled  by  a  beam 
from  the  sun. 

I  am  far  from  thinking  that  these  external  things  are  either 
parts  of  our  devotion,  or  by  any  strength  in  themselves  direct 
causes  of  it ;  but  the  grace  of  God  is  pleased  to  move  us  by 
ways  suitable  to  our  nature,  and  to  sanctify  these  sensible  inferior 
helps  to  greater  and  higher  purposes.  And  since  God  has  placed 
the  soul  in  a  body,  where  it  receives  all  things  by  the  ministry  of 
the  outward  senses,  he  would  have  us  secure  these  cinque  ports 
(as  I  may  so  call  them)  against  the  invasion  of  vain  thoughts, 
by  suggesting  to  them  such  objects  as  may  prepossess  them  with 
the  contrary.  For  God  knows  how  hard  a  lesson  devotion  is,  if 
the  senses  prompt  one  thing,  when  the  heart  is  to  utter  another. 
And  therefore  let  no  man  presume  to  think  that  he  may  present 
God  with  as  acceptable  a  prayer  in  his  shop,  and  much  less  in  an 
ale-house  or  a  tavern,  as  he  may  in  a  church  or  in  his  closet: 
unless  he  can  rationally  promise  himself  (which  is  impossible) 
that  he  shall  find  the  same  devout  motions  and  impressions  upon 
his  spirit  there,  that  he  may  here. 

What  says  David,  in  Psalm  lxxvii.  13?  "Thy  way,  0  God,  is 
in  the  sanctuary."  It  is  no  doubt,  but  that  holy  person  continued  a 
strict  and  most  pious  communion  with  God,  during  his  wanderings 
upon  the  mountains  and  in  the  wilderness ;  but  still  he  found 
in  himself,  that  he  had  not  those  kindly,  warm  meltings  upon 
his  heart,  those  raptures  and  ravishing  transports  of  affection, 
that  he  used  to  have  in  the  fixed  and  solemn  place  of  God's 
worship.  See  the  first  two  verses  of  the  63rd  Psalm,  entitled,  "  A 
psalm  of  David,  when  he  was  in  the  wilderness  of  Judah."  How 
emphatically  and  divinely  does  every  word  proclaim  the  truth 
that  I  have  been  speaking  of!  "  O  God,"  says  he,  "  thou  art  my 
God,  early  will  I  seek  thee :  my  soul  thirsteth  for  thee,  my  flesh 


118 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VII. 


longeth  for  thee,  in  a  dry  and  thirsty  land,  where  no  water  is ;  to 
see  thy  power  and  thy  glory,  so  as  I  have  seen  thee  in  the 
sanctuary."  Much  different  was  his  wish  from  that  of  our 
nonconforming  zealots  now-a-days,  which  expresses  itself  in  another 
kind  of  dialect ;  as,  When  shall  I  enjoy  God  as  I  used  to  do  at  a 
conventicle  ?  When  shall  I  meet  with  those  blessed  breathings, 
those  heavenly  hummings  and  hawings,  that  I  used  to  hear  at  a 
private  meeting,  and  at  the  end  of  a  table  ? 

In  all  our  worshippings  of  God,  we  return  him  but  what  he 
first  gives  us :  and  therefore  he  prefers  the  service  offered  him  in 
the  sanctuary,  because  there  he  usually  vouchsafes  more  helps  to 
the  piously  disposed  persons,  for  the  discharge  of  it.  As  we  value 
the  same  kind  of  fruit  growing  under  one  climate  more  than  under 
another ;  because  under  one  it  has  a  directer  and  a  warmer 
influence  from  the  sun,  than  under  the  other,  which  gives  it  both 
a  better  savour  and  a  greater  worth. 

And  perhaps  I  should  not  want  a  further  argument  for  the 
confirmation  of  the  truth  discoursed  of,  if  I  should  appeal  to  the 
experience  of  many  in  this  nation,  who  having  been  long  bred  to 
the  decent  way  of  divine  service  in  the  cathedrals  of  the  church 
of  England,  were  afterwards  driven  into  foreign  countries,  where 
though  they  brought  with  them  the  same  sincerity  to  church,  yet 
perhaps  they  could  not  find  the  same  enlargements  and  flowings 
out  of  spirit  which  they  were  wront  to  find  here :  especially  in 
some  countries,  where  their  very  religion  smelt  of  the  shop  ;  and 
their  ruder  and  coarser  methods  of  divine  service  seemed  only 
adapted  to  the  genius  of  trade  and  the  designs  of  parsimony: 
though  one  would  think,  that  parsimony  in  God's  worship  were 
the  worst  husbandry  in  the  world,  for  fear  God  should  proportion 
his  blessings  to  such  devotions. 

2.  The  other  reason  why  God  prefers  a  worship  paid  him  in 
places  solemnly  dedicated  and  set  apart  for  that  purpose,  is,  be- 
cause in  such  places  it  is  a  more  direct  service  and  testification 
of  our  homage  to  him.  For  surely,  if  I  should  have  something 
to  ask  of  a  great  person,  it  were  greater  respect  to  wait  upon  him 
with  my  petition  at  his  own  house,  than  to  desire  him  to  come 
and  receive  it  at  mine. 

Set  places  and  set  hours  for  divine  worship,  as  much  as  the 
laws  of  necessity  and  charity  permit  us  to  observe  them,  are  but 
parts  of  that  due  reverence  that  we  owe  it:  for  he  that  is  strict 
in  observing  these,  declares  to  the  world,  that  he  accounts  his 
attendance  upon  God  his  greatest  and  most  important  business  ; 
and  surely,  it  is  infinitely  more  reasonable  that  we  should  wait 
upon  God,  than  God  upon  us. 

We  shall  still  find,  that  when  God  was  pleased  to  vouchsafe 
his  people  a  meeting,  he  himself  would  prescribe  the  place. 
When  he  commanded  Abraham  to  sacrifice  his  only  and  beloved 
Isaac,  the  place  of  the  offering  was  not  left  undetermined,  and  to 


god's  regard  to  places  of  worship. 


119 


the  offerer's  discretion :  but  in  Gen.  xxii.  2,  "  Get  thee  into  the 
land  of  Moriah,"  says  God,  "  and  offer  him  for  a  burnt-offering 
upon  one  of  the  mountains  that  I  shall  tell  thee  of." 

It  was  part  of  his  sacrifice,  not  only  what  he  should  offer,  but 
where.  When  we  serve  God  in  his  own  house,  his  service  (as  I 
may  so  say)  leads  all  our  other  secular  affairs  in  triumph  after  it. 
They  are  all  made  to  stoop  and  bend  the  knee  to  prayer,  as  that 
does  to  the  throne  of  grace. 

Thrice  a  year  were  the  Israelites  from  all,  even  the  remotest 
parts  of  Palestine,  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  there  to  worship,  and 
pay  their  offerings  at  the  temple.  The  great  distance  of  some 
places  from  thence  could  not  excuse  the  inhabitants  from  making 
their  appearance  there,  which  the  Mosaic  law  exacted  as  indis- 
pensable. 

Whether  or  no  they  had  coaches,  to  the  temple  they  must  go  ; 
nor  could  it  excuse  them  to  plead  God's  omniscience,  that  he 
could  equally  see  and  hear  them  in  any  place ;  nor  yet  their  own 
good  will  and  intentions,  as  if  the  readiness  of  their  mind  to  go, 
might,  forsooth,  warrant  their  bodies  to  slay  at  home.  Nor, 
lastly,  could  the  real  danger  of  leaving  their  dwellings  to  go  up 
to  the  temple  excuse  their  journey ;  for  they  might  very  plausibly 
and  very  rationally  have  alleged,  that  during  their  absence  their 
enemies  round  about  them  might  take  that  advantage  to  invade 
their  land.  And  therefore,  to  obviate  this  fear  and  exception, 
which  indeed  was  built  upon  so  good  ground,  God  makes  them 
a  promise,  which  certainly  is  as  remarkable  as  any  in  the  whole 
book  of  God,  Exod.  xxxiv.  24,  "  I  will  cast  out  the  nations 
before  thee ;  neither  shall  any  man  desire  thy  land,  when  thou 
shalt  go  up  to  appear  before  the  Lord  thy  God  thrice  in  a 
year."  While  they  were  appearing  in  God's  house,  God  himself 
engages  to  keep  and  defend  theirs,  and  that  by  little  less  than  a 
miracle,  putting  forth  an  overpowering  work  and  influence  upon 
the  very  hearts  and  wills  of  men,  that  when  their  opportunities 
should  induce,  their  hearts  should  not  serve  them  to  annoy  their 
neighbours. 

For  surely  a  rich  land,  guardless  and  undefended,  must  needs 
have  been  a  double  incitement,  and  such  a  one  as  might  not  only 
admit,  but  even  invite  the  enemy.  It  was  like  a  fruitful  garden, 
or  a  fair  vineyard  without  a  hedge,  that  quickens  the  appetite 
to  enjoy  so  tempting,  and  withal  so  easy  a  prize.  But  the  great 
God,  by  ruling  men's  hearts,  could  by  consequence  hold  their 
bands,  and  turn  the  very  desires  of  interest  and  nature  out  of 
their  common  channel,  to  comply  with  the  designs  of  his  worship. 

But  now,  had  not  God  set  a  very  peculiar  value  upon  the  service 
paid  him  in  his  temple,  surely  he  would  not  have  thus,  as  it  were, 
made  himself  his  people's  convoy,  and  exerted  a  supernatural 
work  to  secure  them  in  their  passage  to  it.  And  therefore  that 
eminent  hero  in  religion,  Daniel,  when  in  the  land  of  his  captivity 


120 


DR.  SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  YH. 


he  used  to  pay  his  daily  devotions  to  God,  not  being  able  to  go  to 
the  temple,  would  at  least  look  towards  it,  advance  to  it  in  wish 
and  desire ;  and  so,  in  a  manner,  bring  the  temple  to  his  prayers 
when  he  could  not  bring  his  prayers  to  that. 

And  now,  what  have  I  to  do  more  but  to  wish  that  all  this 
discourse  may  have  that  blessed  effect  upon  us,  as  to  send  us  both 
to  this  and  to  all  other  solemn  places  of  divine  worship,  with 
those  three  excellent  ingredients  of  devotion,  desire,  reverence, 
and  confidence  ? 

1.  And  first,  for  desire.  We  should  come  hither  as  to  meet 
God  in  a  place  where  he  loves  to  meet  us,  and  where  (as  Isaac 
did  to  his  sons)  he  gives  us  blessings  with  embraces.  Many 
frequent  the  gates  of  Sion,  but  is  it  because  they  love  them ;  and 
not  rather  because  their  interest  forces  them,  much  against  their 
inclination,  to  endure  them? 

Do  they  hasten  to  their  devotions  with  that  ardour  and  quick- 
ness of  mind  that  they  would  to  a  lewd  play  or  a  masquerade  ? 
Or  do  they  not  rather  come  hither  slowly,  sit  here  uneasily,  and 
depart  desirously  ?  All  which  is  but  too  evident  a  sign  that  men 
repair  to  the  house  of  God,  not  as  a  place  of  fruition,  but  of 
task  and  trouble ;  not  to  enjoy,  but  to  afflict  themselves. 

2.  We  should  come  full  of  reverence  to  such  sacred  places ;  and 
where  there  are  affections  of  reverence,  there  will  be  postures  of 
reverence  too.  Within  consecrated  walls  we  are  more  directly 
under  God's  eye,  who  looks  through  and  through  every  one  that 
appears  before  him,  and  is  too  jealous  a  God  to  be  affronted  to 
his  face. 

3.  And  lastly;  God's  peculiar  property  in  such  places  should 
give  us  a  confidence  in  our  addresses  to  him.  Reverence  and 
confidence  are  so  far  from  being  inconsistent,  that  they  are  the 
most  direct  and  proper  qualifications  of  a  devout  and  filial  approach 
to  God.  For  where  should  we  be  so  confident  of  a  blessing,  as 
in  the  place  and  element  of  blessings ;  the  place  where  God  both 
promises  and  delights  to  dispense  larger  proportions  of  his  favour, 
even  for  this  purpose,  that  he  may  fix  a  mark  of  honour  upon  his 
sanctuary;  and  so  recommend  and  endear  it  to  the  sons  of  men, 
upon  the  stock  of  their  own  interest,  as  well  as  his  glory ;  who 
has  declared  himself  "the  high  and  the  lofty  One  that  inhabits 
eternity,  and  dwells  not  in  houses  made  with  men's  hands,  yet  is 
pleased  to  be  present  in  the  assemblies  of  his  saints?" 

To  whom  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise, 
might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen.. 


121 


SERMON  VIII. 

ALL  CONTINGENCIES  UNDER  THE  DIRECTION  OF  GOD'S  PROVIDENCE. 
[Preached  at  Westminster  Abbey,  February  22,  16S4-o  ] 

Prov.  xvi.  33. 

The  lot  is  cast  into  the  lap ;  but  the  whole  disposi7ig  of  it  is  of 
the  Lord. 

I  cannot  think  mvself  engaged  from  these  words  to  discourse  of 
lots,  as  to  their  nature,  use,  and  allowableness  ;  and  that  not  only 
in  matters  of  moment  and  business,  but  also  of  recreation  ;  which 
latter  is,  indeed,  impugned  by  some,  though  better  defended  by 
others ;  but  I  shall  fix  only  upon  the  design  of  the  words,  which 
seems  to  be  a  declaration  of  a  divine  perfection  by  a  single  in- 
stance :  a  proof  of  the  exactness  and  universality  of  God's  provi- 
dence from  its  influence  upon  a  thing,  of  all  others,  the  most  casual 
and  fortuitous,  such  as  is  the  casting  of  lots. 

A  lot  is  properly  a  casual  event,  purposely  applied  to  the  deter- 
mination of  some  doubtful  thing. 

Some  there  are,  who  utterly  proscribe  the  name  of  chance  as  a 
word  of  impious  and  profane  signification:  and,  indeed,  if  it  be 
taken  by  us  in  that  sense  in  which  it  was  used  by  the  heathen,  so 
as  to  make  any  thing  casual  in  respect  of  God  himself,  their 
exception  ought  justly  to  be  admitted.  But  to  say  a  thing  is  a 
chance,  or  casualty,  as  it  relates  to  second  causes,  is  not  profane- 
ness,  but  a  great  truth  ;  as  signifying  no  more,  than  that  there  are 
some  events,  besides  the  knowledge,  purpose,  expectation,  and 
power  of  second  agents  :  and  for  this  very  reason,  because  they  are 
so,  it  is  the  royal  prerogative  of  God  himself,  to  have  all  these  loose, 
uneven,  fickle  uncertainties  under  his  disposal. 

The  subject  therefore,  that  from  hence  we  are  naturally  carried 
to  the  consideration  of,  is  the  admirable  extent  of  the  divine  provi- 
dence, in  managing  the  most  contingent  passages  of  human  affairs  ; 
which  that  we  may  the  better  treat  of,  we  will  consider  the  result 
of  a  lot  i — 

L  In  reference  to  men.    II.  In  reference  to  God. 

L  For  the  first  of  these,  if  we  consider  it  as  relating  to  men,  who 
suspend  the  decision  of  some  dubious  case  upon  it,  so  we  shall  find 
that  it  naturally  implies  in  it  these  two  things  : — 

1.  Something  future.  2.  Something  contingent. 

From  which  two  qualifications  these  two  things  also  follow : 

Vol.  L — 16  L 


122 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[serm.  vm. 


I.  That  it  is  absolutely  out  of  the  reach  of  man's  knowledge.  2. 
That  it  is  equally  out  of  his  power. 

This  is  most  clear ;  for  otherwise,  why  are  men  in  such  cases 
doubtful  and  concerned,  what  the  issue  and  result  should  be  ?  for 
no  man  doubts  of  what  he  sees  and  knows ;  nor  is  solicitous  about 
the  event  of  that  which  he  has  in  his  power  to  dispose  of  to  what 
event  he  pleases. 

The  right  of  man's  understanding  is  but  a  short,  diminutive, 
contracted  light,  and  looks  not  beyond  the  present ;  he  knows 
nothing  future,  but  as  it  has  some  kind  of  presence  in  the  stable, 
constant  manner  of  operation  belonging  to  its  cause,  by  virtue  of 
which  we  know,  that  if  the  fire  continues  for  twenty  years,  it 
will  certainly  burn  so  long;  and  that  there  will  be  summer, 
wunter,  and  harvest  in  their  respective  seasons :  but  whether 
God  will  continue  the  world  till  to-morrow  or  no  we  cannot 
know  by  any  certain  argument,  either  from  the  nature  of  God  or  of 
the  world. 

But  when  we  look  upon  such  things  as  relate  to  their  immediate 
causes  with  a  perfect  indifference,  so  that  in  respect  of  them  they 
equally  may  or  may  not  be  ;  human  reason  can  then,  at  the  best, 
but  conjecture  what  will  be.  And  in  some  things,  as  here  in  the 
casting  of  lots,  a  man  cannot,  upon  any  ground  of  reason,  bring  the 
event  of  them  so  much  as  under  conjecture. 

The  choice  of  man's  will  is  indeed  uncertain,  because  in  many 
things  free ;  but  yet  there  are  certain  habits  and  principles  in 
the  soul,  that  have  some  kind  of  sway  upon  it,  apt  to  bias  it 
more  one  way  than  another ;  so  that,  upon  the  proposal  of  an 
agreeable  object,  it  may  rationally  be  conjectured,  that  a  man's 
choice  will  rather  incline  him  to  accept  than  to  refuse  it.  But 
when  lots  are  shuffled  together  in  a  lap,  urn,  or  pitcher,  or  a 
man  blindfold  casts  a  die,  what  reason  in  the  world  can  he  have 
to  presume  that  he  shall  draw  a  white  stone  rather  than  a  black,  or 
throw  an  ace  rather  than  a  sice  ?  Now,  if  these  things  are 
thus  out  of  the  compass  of  a  man's  knowledge,  it  will  unavoid- 
ably follow,  that  they  are  also  out  of  his  power.  For  no  man 
can  govern  or  command  that  which  he  cannot  possibly  know ; 
since  to  dispose  of  a  thing,  implies  both  a  knowledge  of  the 
thing  to  be  disposed  of,  and  of  the  end  that  it  is  to  be  disposed 
of  to. 

And  thus  we  have  seen  how  a  contingent  event  baffles  man's 
knowledge,  and  evades  his  power. 

II.  Let  us  now  consider  the  same  in  respect  of  God ;  and  so  we 
shall  find  that  it  falls  under, 

1.  A  certain  knowledge.    And,  2.  A  determining  providence. 

1.  First  of  all  then,  the  most  casual  event  of  things,  as  it  ^ 
stands  related  to  God,  is  comprehended  by  a  certain  knowledge. 
God,  by  reason  of  his  eternal,  infinite,  and  indivisible  nature,  is, 


ALL  CONTINGENCIES  DIRECTED  BY  PROVIDENCE.  123 

by  one  single  act  of  duration,  present  to  all  the  successive  portions 
of  time,  and  consequently  to  all  things  successively  existing  in 
them :  which  eternal,  indivisible  act  of  his  existence,  makes  all 
futures  actually  present  to  him ;  and  it  is  the  presentiality  of  the 
object  which  founds  the  unerring  certainty  of  his  knowledge. 
For  whatsoever  is  known,  is  some  way  or  other  present ;  and  that 
which  is  present,  cannot  but  be  known  by  him  wTho  is  om- 
niscient. 

But  I  shall  not  insist  upon  these  speculations,  which  when 
they  are  most  refined  serve  only  to  show  how  impossible  it  is 
for  us  to  have  a  clear  and  explicit  notion  of  that  which  is  in- 
finite. Let  it  suffice  us  in  general  to  acknowledge  and  adore 
the  vast  compass  of  God's  omniscience,  that  it  is  a  light  shining 
into  every  dark  corner,  ripping  up  all  secrets,  and  steadfastly 
grasping  the  greatest  and  most  slippery  uncertainties.  As  when 
we  see  the  sun  shine  upon  a  river,  though  the  waves  of  it  move 
and  roll  this  way  and  that  way  by  the  wind ;  yet,  for  all  their 
unsettledness,  the  sun  strikes  them  with  a  direct  and  certain 
beam.  Look  upon  things  of  the  most  accidental  and  mutable 
nature,  accidental  in  their  production,  and  mutable  in  their  con- 
tinuance ;  yet  God's  prescience  of  them  is  as  certain  in  him,  as 
the.  memory  of  them  is  or  can  be  in  us :  he  knows  which  way 
the  lot  and  the  die  shall  fall,  as  perfectly  as  if  they  were  already 
cast.  All  futurities  are  naked  before  that  all-seeing  eye,  the 
sight  of  which  is  no  more  hindered  by  distance  of  time,  than  the 
sight  of  an  angel  can  be  determined  by  distance  of  place. 

2.  As  all  contingencies  are  comprehended  by  a  certain  divine 
knowledge,  so  they  are  governed  by  as  certain  and  steady  a  pro- 
vidence. There  is  no  wandering  out  of  the  reach  of  this,  no 
slipping  out  of  the  hands  of  omnipotence.  God's  hand  is  as  steady 
as  his  eye :  and  certainly,  thus  to  reduce  contingency  to  method, 
instability  and  chance  itself  to  an  unfailing  rule  and  order,  argues 
such  a  mind  as  is  fit  to  govern  the  world ;  and  I  am  sure  nothing 
less  than  such  a  one  can. 

Now  God  may  be  said  to  bring  the  greatest  casualties  under  his 
providence  upon  a  twofold  account : 

(1.)  That  he  directs  them  to  a  certain  end.  (2.)  Oftentimes  to 
very  weighty  and  great  ends. 

(1.)  And  first  of  all  he  directs  them  to  a  certain  end.  Provi- 
dence never  shoots  at  rovers.  There  is  an  arrow  that  flies  by 
night,  as  well  as  by  day,  and  God  is  the  person  that  shoots  it, 
who  can  aim  then  as  well  as  in  the  day.  Things  are  not  left  to 
an  equilibrium,  to  hover  under  an  indifference  whether  they  shall 
come  to  pass  or  not  come  to  pass ;  but  the  whole  train  of  events 
is  laid  beforehand,  and  all  proceed  by  the  rule  and  limit  of  an 
antecedent  degree :  for  otherwise,  who  could  manage  the  affairs 
of  the  world,  and  govern  the  dependence  of  one  event  upon 
another,  if  that  event  happened  at  random,  and  was  not  cast  into 


124 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VIII. 


a  certain  method  and  relation  to  some  foregoing  purpose  to  di- 
rect it  ? 

The  reason  why  men  are  so  short  and  weak  in  governing  is,  be- 
cause most  things  fall  out  to  them  accidentally,  and  come  not  into 
any  compliance  with  their  preconceived  ends,  but  they  are  forced 
to  comply  subsequently,  and  to  strike  in  with  things  as  they  fall 
out,  by  postliminious  after-applications  of  them  to  their  purposes, 
or  by  framing  their  purposes  to  them. 

But  now  there  is  not  the  least  thing  that  falls  within  the  cogni- 
zance of  man,  but  is  directed  by  the  counsel  of  God.  "  Not  a  hair 
can  fall  from  our  head,  nor  a  sparrow  to  the  ground,  without  the 
will  of  our  heavenly  Father."  Such  a  universal  superintendency 
has  the  eye  and  hand  of  Providence  over  all,  even  the  most  minute 
and  inconsiderable  things. 

Nay,  and  sinful  actions  too  are  overruled  to  a  certain  issue; 
even  that  horrid  villany  of  the  crucifixion  of  our  Saviour  was 
not  a  thing  left  to  the  disposal  of  chance  and  uncertainty;  but 
in  Acts  ii.  23,  it  is  said  of  him,  that  "he  was  delivered  to  the 
wicked  hands  of  his  murderers,  by  the  determinate  counsel  and 
foreknowledge  of  God :"  for  surely  the  Son  of  God  could  not  die 
by  chance,  nor  the  greatest  thing  that  ever  came  to  pass  in  nature 
be  left  to  an  undeterminate  event.  Is  it  imaginable,  that  the 
great  means  of  the  world's  redemption  should  rest  only  in  the 
number  of  possibilities,  and  hang  so  loose  in  respect  of  its  futu- 
rition,  as  to  leave  the  event  in  an  equal  poise,  whether  ever  there 
should  be  such  a  thing  or  no  ?  Certainly  the  actions  and  proceed- 
ing of  wise  men  run  in  a  much  greater  closeness  and  coherence 
with  one  another,  than  thus  to  drive  at  a  casual  issue,  brought 
under  no  forecast  or  design.  The  pilot  must  intend  some  port 
before  he  steers  his  course,  or  he  had  as  good  leave  his  vessel  to 
the  direction  of  the  winds  and  the  government  of  the  waves. 

Those  that  suspend  the  purposes  of  God  and  the  resolves  of 
an  eternal  mind  upon  the  actions  of  the  creature,  and  make  God 
first  wait  and  expect  what  the  creature  will  do,  and  then  frame 
his  decrees  and  counsels  accordingly,  forget  that  he  is  the  first 
cause  of  all  things,  and  discourse  most  unphilosophically,  absurdly, 
and  unsuitably  to  the  nature  of  an  infinite  being,  whose  influence 
in  every  motion  must  set  the  first  wheel  a  going.  He  must  still 
be  the  first  agent ;  and  what  he  does  he  must  will  and  intend  to  do 
before  he  does  it ;  and  what  he  wills  and  intends  once,  he  willed 
and  intended  from  all  eternity  ;  it  being  grossly  contrary  to  the  very 
first  notions  we  have  of  the  infinite  perfection  of  the  divine  nature, 
to  state  or  suppose  any  new  immanent  act  in  God. 

The  Stoics  indeed  held  a  fatality,  and  a  fixed  unalterable  course 
of  events ;  but  then  they  held  also,  that  they  fell  out  by  a  neces- 
sity emergent  from  and  inherent  in  the  things  themselves,  which 
God  himself  could  not  alter:  so  that  they  subjected  God  to  the 
fatal  chain  of  causes ;  whereas  they  should  have  resolved  the 


ALL  CONTINGENCIES  DIRECTED  BY  PROVIDENCE.  125 


necessity  of  all  inferior  events  into  the  free  determination  of  God 
himself,  who  executes  necessarily  that  which  he  first  purposed 
freely. 

In  a  word,  if  we  allow  God  to  be  the  governor  of  the  world, 
we  cannot  but  grant,  that  he  orders  and  disposes  of  all  inferior 
events ;  and  if  we  allow  him  to  be  a  wise  and  a  rational  governor, 
he  cannot  but  direct  them  to  a  certain  end. 

(2.)  In  the  next  place,  he  directs  all  these  appearing  casualties 
not  only  to  certain,  but  also  to  very  great  ends.  He  that  created 
something  out  of  nothing,  surely  can  raise  great  things  out  of 
small,  and  bring  all  the  scattered  and  disordered  passages  of 
affairs  into  a  great,  beautiful,  and  exact  frame.  Now  this  over- 
ruling, directing  power  of  God  may  be  considered, 

First,  In  reference  to  societies,  or  united  bodies  of  men.  Se- 
condly, In  reference  to  particular  persons. 

First.  And  first,  for  societies.  God  and  nature  do  not  prin- 
cipally concern  themselves  in  the  preservation  of  particulars,  but 
of  kinds  and  companies.  Accordingly,  wTe  must  allow  Providence 
to  be  more  intent  and  solicitous  about  nations  and  governments, 
than  about  any  private  interest  whatsoever:  upon  which  account 
it  must  needs  have  a  peculiar  influence  upon  the  erection,  con- 
tinuance, and  dissolution  of  every  society.  Which  great  effects 
it  is  strange  to  consider,  by  what  small,  inconsiderable  means 
they  are  oftentimes  brought  about,  and  those  so  wholly  unde- 
signed by  such  as  are  the  immediate  visible  actors  in  them. 
Examples  of  this  we  have  both  in  holy  writ,  and  also  in  other 
stories. 

And  first,  for  those  of  the  former  sort.  Let  us  reflect  upon 
that  strange  and  unparalleled  story  of  Joseph  and  his  brethren; 
a  story  that  seems  to  be  made  up  of  nothing  else  but  chances  and 
little  contingencies,  all  directed  to  mighty  ends.  For  was  it  not 
a  mere  chance  that  his  father  Jacob  should  send  him  to  visit  his 
brethren,  just  at  that  time  that  the  Ishmaelites  were  to  pass  by 
that  way,  and  so  his  unnatural  brethren  take  occasion  to  sell  him 
to  them,  and  they  to  carry  him  into  Egypt  ?  and  then  that  he 
should  be  cast  into  prison,  and  thereby  brought  at  length  to  the 
knowledge  of  Pharaoh  in  that  unlikely  manner  that  he  was? 
Yet  by  a  joint  connection  of  every  one  of  these  casual  events, 
Providence  served  itself  in  the  preservation  of  a  kingdom  from 
famine,  and  of  the  church,  then  circumscribed  within  the  family 
of  Jacob.  Likewise  by  their  sojourning  in  Egypt,  he  made  way 
for  their  bondage  there;  and  their  bondage,  for  a  glorious  de- 
liverance through  those  prodigious  manifestations  of  the  divine 
power,  in  the  several  plagues  inflicted  upon  the  Egyptians.  It 
was  hugely  accidental,  that  Joash  king  of  Israel,  being  com- 
manded by  the  prophet  to  "  strike  upon  the  ground,"  2  Kings 
xiii.,  should  strike  no  oftener  than  just  three  times;  and  yet  we 
find  there,  that  the  fate  of  a  kingdom  depended  upon  it,  and  that 


126 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VIII. 


his  victories  over  Syria  were  concluded  by  that  number.  It  was 
very  casual,  that  the  Levite  and  his  concubine  should  linger  so 
long,  as  to  be  forced  to  take  up  their  lodging  at  Gibeah,  as  we 
read  in  Judges  xix.,  and  yet  we  know  what  a  villany  was  occa- 
sioned by  it,  and  what  a  civil  war  that  drew  after  it,  almost  to  the 
destruction  of  a  whole  tribe. 

And  then  for  examples  out  of  other  histories,  to  hint  a  few  of 
them.  Perhaps  there  is  none  more  remarkable,  than  that  passage 
about  Alexander  the  Great,  in  his  famed  expedition  against 
Darius.  When  in  his  march  towards  him,  chancing  to  bathe 
himself  in  the  river  Cydnus,  through  the  excessive  coldness  of 
those  waters,  he  fell  sick  near  unto  death  for  three  days ;  during 
which  short  space  the  Persian  army  had  advanced  itself  into  the 
strait  passages  of  Cilicia;  by  which  means  Alexander  with  his 
small  army  was  able  to  equal  them  under  those  disadvantages, 
and  to  fight  and  conquer  them.  Whereas,  had  not  this  stop  been 
given  him  by  that  accidental  sickness,  his  great  courage  and 
promptness  of  mind  would,  beyond  all  doubt,  have  carried  him 
directly  forward  to  the  enemy,  till  he  had  met  him  in  the  vast 
open  plains  of  Persia,  where  his  paucity  and  small  numbers 
would  have  been  contemptible,  and  the  Persian  multitudes  for- 
midable ;  and,  in  all  likelihood  of  reason,  victorious.  So  that 
this  one  little  accident  of  that  prince's  taking  a  fancy  to  bathe 
himself  at  that  time,  caused  the  interruption  of  his  march ;  and 
that  interruption  gave  occasion  to  that  great  victory  that  founded 
the  third  monarchy  of  the  world.  In  like  manner,  how  much  of 
casualty  was  there  in  the  preservation  of  Romulus,  as  soon  as 
born  exposed  by  his  uncle,  and  taken  up  and  nourished  by  a 
shepherd!  (for  the  story  of  the  she- wolf  is  a  fable.)  And  yet  in 
that  one  accident  was  laid  the  foundation  of  the  fourth  universal 
monarchy. 

How  doubtful  a  case  was  it,  whether  Hannibal,  after  the 
battle  of  Cannae,  should  march  directly  to  Rome,  or  divert  into 
Campania!  Certain  it  is,  that  there  was  more  reason  for  the 
former;  and  he  was  a  person  that  had  sometimes  the  command 
of  reason  as  well  as  of  regiments;  yet  his  reason  deserted  his 
conduct  at  that  time ;  and  by  not  going  to  Rome,  he  gave  occa- 
sion to  those  recruits  of  the  Roman  strength,  that  prevailed  to 
the  conquest  of  his  country,  and  at  length  to  the  destruction  of 
Carthage  itself,  one  of  the  most  puissant  cities  in  the  world. 

And  to  descend  to  occurrences  within  our  own  nation.  How 
many  strange  accidents  concurred  in  the  whole  business  of  king 
Henry  the  eighth's  divorce;  yet  we  see  Providence  directed  it 
and  them  to  an  entire  change  of  the  affairs  and  state  of  the  whole 
kingdom.  And  surely  there  could  not  be  a  greater  chance  than 
that  which  brought  to  light  the  powder  treason  ;  when  Providence, 
as  it  were,  snatched  a  king  and  kingdom  out  of  the  very  jaws  of 
death,  only  by  the  mistake  of  a  word  in  the  direction  of  a  letter. 


ALL  CONTINGENCIES  DIRECTED  BY  PROVIDENCE.  127 

But  of  all  cases,  in  which  little  casualties  produce  great  and 
strange  effects,  the  chief  is  in  war ;  upon  the  issues  of  which 
hangs  the  fortune  of  states  and  kingdoms.  - 

Caesar,  I  am  sure,  whose  great  sagacity  and  conduct  put  his 
success  as  much  out  of  the  power  of  chance  as  human  reason 
could  well  do  ;  yet  upon  occasion  of  a  notable  experiment  that 
had  like  to  have  lost  him  his  whole  army  at  Dyrrachium,  tells  us 
the  power  of  it  in  the  third  book  of  his  Commentaries,  De  Bello 
Civili :  "  Fortuna  qua  plurimum  potest,  cum  in  aliis  rebus,  turn 
prcecipue  in  bello,  in  parvis  momentis  magnas  rerum  mutationes 
efficit"  Nay,  and  a  greater  than  Caesar,  even  the  Spirit  of  God 
himself,  in  Eccles.  ix.  11,  expressly  declares,  "that  the  battle  is 
not  always  to  the  strong."  So  that,  upon  this  account,  every  war- 
rior may  in  some  sense  be  said  to  be  a  soldier  of  fortune  ;  and  the 
best  commanders  to  have  a  kind  of  lottery  for  their  work,  as 
amongst  us,  they  have  for  a  reward.  For  how  often  have  whole 
armies  been  routed  by  a  little  mistake,  or  a  sudden  fear  raised  in 
the  soldiers'  minds  upon  some  trivial  ground  or  occasion ! 

Sometimes  the  misunderstanding  of  a  word  has  scattered  and 
destroyed  those  who  have  been  even  in  possession  of  victory,  and 
wholly  turned  the  fortune  of  the  day.  A  spark  of  fire  or  an 
unexpected  gust  of  wind  may  ruin  a  navy.  And  sometimes 
a  false,  senseless  report  has  spread  so  far,  and  sunk  so  deep  into 
the  people's  minds,  as  to  cause  a  tumult,  and  that  tumult  a  re- 
bellion, and  that  rebellion  has  ended  in  the  subversion  of  a 
government. 

And  in  the  late  war  between  the  king  and  some  of  his  rebel 
subjects,  has  it  not  sometimes  been  at  an  even  cast,  whether  his 
army  should  march  this  way  or  that  way?  Whereas,  had  it  taken 
that  way  which  actually  it  did  not,  things  afterwards  so  fell  out, 
that  in  very  high  probability  of  reason,  it  must  have  met  with  such 
success,  as  would  have  put  a  happy  issue  to  that  wretched 
war,  and  thereby  have  continued  the  crown  upon  that  blessed 
prince's  head,  and  his  head  upon  his  shoulders.  Upon  supposal 
of  which  event,  most  of  those  sad  and  strange  alterations  that 
have  since  happened  would  have  been  prevented,  the  ruin  of 
many  honest  men  hindered,  the  punishment  of  many  great  vil- 
lains hastened,  and  the  preferment  of  greater  spoiled. 

Many  passages  happen  in  the  world,  much  like  that  little  cloud 
in  1  Kings  xviii.,  that  appeared  at  first  to  Elijah's  servant,  "no 
bigger  than  a  man's  hand  ;"  but  presently  after  grew  and  spread 
and  blackened  the  face  of  the  whole  heaven,  and  then  discharged 
itself  in  thunder,  and  rain,  and  a  mighty  tempest.  So  these 
accidents,  when  they  first  happen,  seem  but  small  and  contemp- 
tible ;  but  by  degrees  they  branch  out,  and  widen  themselves  into 
such  a  numerous  train  of  mischievous  consequences,  one  drawing 
after  it  another,  by  a  continued  dependence  and  multiplication,  that 
the  plague  becomes  victorious  and  universal,  and  personal  miscar- 
riage determines  in  a  national  calamity. 


128 


DR.  SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VIII. 


For  who,  that  should  view  the  small,  despicable  beginnings  of 
some  things  and  persons  at  first,  could  imagine  or  prognosticate 
those  vast  and  stupendous  increases  of  fortune  that  have  after- 
wards followed  them  ? 

Who,  that  had  looked  upon  Agathocles  first  handling  the  clay, 
and  making  pots  under  his  father,  and  afterwards  turning  robber, 
could  have  thought,  that  from  such  a  condition  he  should  come  to 
be  king  of  Sicily  ? 

Who,  that  had  seen  Massaniello,  a  poor  fisherman,  with  his  red 
cap  and  his  angle,  could  have  reckoned  it  possible  to  see  such 
a  pitiful  thing,  within  a  week  after,  shining  in  his  cloth  of  gold, 
and  with  a  word  or  a  nod  absolutely  commanding  the  whole  city 
of  Naples  ? 

And  who,  that  had  beheld  such  a  bankrupt  beggarly  fellow  as 
Cromwell,  first  entering  the  parliament-house  with  a  threadbare 
torn  cloak,  and  a  greasy  hat,  (and  perhaps  neither  of  them  paid 
for),  could  have  suspected,  that  in  the  space  of  so  few  years,  he 
should  by  the  murder  of  one  king,  and  the  banishment  of  another, 
ascend  the  throne,  be  invested  in  the  royal  robes,  and  want 
nothing  of  the  state  of  a  king,  but  the  changing  of  his  hat  into  a 
crown  ? 

It  is,  as  it  were,  the  sport  of  the  Almighty,  thus  to  baffle 
and  confound  the  sons  of  men  by  such  events,  as  both  cross  the 
methods  of  their  actings,  and  surpass  the  measure  of  their  ex- 
pectations. For  according  to  both  these,  men  still  suppose  a 
gradual  natural  progress  of  things  ;  as,  that  from  great,  things 
and  persons  should  grow  greater,  till  at  length,  by  many  steps 
and  ascents,  they  come  to  be  at  the  greatest;  not  considering, 
that  when  Providence  designs  strange  and  mighty  changes,  it 
gives  men  wings  instead  of  legs ;  and  instead  of  climbing  lei- 
surely, makes  them  at  once  fly  to  the  top  and  height  of  greatness 
and  power :  so  that  the  world  about  them,  looking  up  to  those  il- 
lustrious upstarts,  scarce  knows  who  or  whence  they  were,  nor  they 
themselves  where  they  are. 

It  were  infinite  to  insist  upon  particular  instances  ;  histories  are 
full  of  them,  and  experience  seals  to  the  truth  of  history. 

In  the  next  place,  let  us  consider  to  what  great  purposes  God 
directs  these  little  casualties,  with  reference  to  particular  persons, 
and  those  either  public  or  private. 

1.  And  first  for  public  persons,  as  princes.  Was  it  not  a  mere 
accident,  that  Pharaoh's  daughter  met  with  Moses  ?  Yet  it  was  a 
means  to  bring  him  up  in  the  Egyptian  court,  then  the  school 
of  all  arts  and  policy,  and  so  to  fit  him  for  that  great  and  ardu- 
ous employment  that  God  designed  him  to.  For  see  upon  what 
little  hinges  that  great  affair  turned  ;  for  had  either  the  child  been 
cast  out,  or  Pharaoh's  daughter  come  down  to  the  river  but  an 
hour  sooner  or  later,  or  had  that  little  vessel  not  been  cast  by  the 
parents  or  carried  by  the  water  into  that  very  place  where 


ALL  CONTINGENCIES  DIRECTED  BY  PROVIDENCE. 


129 


it  was,  in  all  likelihood  the  child  must  have  undergone  the  com- 
mon lot  of  the  other  Hebrew  children,  and  been  either  starved 
or  drowned ;  or,  however,  not  advanced  to  such  a  peculiar  height 
and  happiness  of  condition.  That  Octavius  Caesar  should  shift 
his  tent  (which  he  had  never  used  to  do  before)  just  that  very 
night  that  it  happened  to  be  taken  by  the  enemy,  was  a  mere 
casualty  ;  yet  such  a  one  as  preserved  a  person  who  lived  to 
establish  a  total  alteration  of  government  in  the  imperial  city  of 
the  world. 

But  we  need  not  go  far  for  a  prince  preserved  by  as  strange  a 
series  of  little  contingencies,  as  ever  were  managed  by  the  art  of 
Providence  to  so  great  a  purpose. 

There  was  but  a  hair's  breadth  between  him  and  certain 
destruction  for  the  space  of  many  days ;  for  had  the  rebel  forces 
gone  one  way,  rather  than  another,  or  come  but  a  little  sooner  to 
his  hiding  place,  or  but  mistrusted  something  which  they  passed 
over  (all  which  things  might  very  easily  have  happened),  we  had 
not  seen  this  face  of  things  at  this  day  ;  but  rebellion  had  been 
still  enthroned,  perjury  and  cruelty  had  reigned,  majesty  had 
been  proscribed,  religion  extinguished,  and  both  church  and  state 
thoroughly  reformed  and  ruined  with  confusions,  massacres,  and  a 
total  desolation. 

On  the  contrary,  when  Providence  designs  judgment  or  de- 
struction to  a  prince,  nobody  knows  by  what  little,  unusual, 
unregarded  means  the  fatal  blow  shall  reach  him.  If  Ahab  be 
designed  for  death,  though  a  soldier  in  the  enemy's  army  draws  a 
bow  at  a  venture  ;  yet  the  sure,  unerring  directions  of  Providence 
shall  carry  it  in  a  direct  course  to  his  heart,  and  there  lodge  the 
revenge  of  heaven. 

An  old  woman  shall  cast  down  a  stone  from  a  wall,  and  God 
shall  send  it  to  the  head  of  Abimelech,  and  so  sacrifice  a  king  in 
the  very  head  of  his  army. 

How  many  warnings  had  Julius  Caesar  of  the  fatal  ides  of 
March!  Whereupon  sometimes  he  resolved  not  to  go  to  the 
senate,  and  sometimes  again  he  would  go :  and  when  at  length  he 
did  go,  in  his  very  passage  thither,  one  put  into  his  hand  a  note 
of  the  whole  conspiracy  against  him,  together  with  all  the 
names  of  the  conspirators,  desiring  him  to  read  it  forthwith,  and 
to  remember  the  giver  of  it  as  long  as  he  lived.  But  continual 
salutes  and  addresses  entertaining  him  all  the  way,  kept  him 
from  saving  so  great  a  life  but  with  one  glance  of  his  eye  upon 
the  paper :  till  he  came  to  the  fatal  place  where  he  was  stabbed, 
and  died  with  the  very  means  of  preventing  death  in  his  hand. 

Henry  the  Second  of  France,  by  a  splinter  unhappily  thrust  into 
his  eye  at  a  solemn  justing,  was  despatched  and  sent  out  of  the 
world,  by  a  sad,  but  very  accidental  death. 

In  a  word,  God  has  many  ways  to  reap  down  the  grandees  of 
the  earth ;  an  arrow,  a  bullet,  a  tile,  a  stone  from  a  house,  is 

Vol.  1—17 


130 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VIII. 


enough  to  do  it ;  and  besides  all  these  ways,  sometimes  when  he 
intends  to  bereave  the  world  of  a  prince  or  an  illustrious  person, 
he  may  cast  him  upon  a  bold,  self-opinioned  physician,  wTorse  than 
his  distemper ;  who  shall  dose,  and  bleed,  and  kill  him  secundum 
Urtem,  and  make  a  shift  to  cure  him  into  his  grave. 

In  the  last  place,  we  will  consider  this  directing  influence  of  God, 
with  reference  to  private  persons  ;  and  that,  as  touching  things  of 
nearest  concernment  to  them.  As, 

1.  Their  lives.  2.  Their  health.  3.  Their  reputation.  4.  Their 
friendships.  And,  5,  and  lastly,  their  employments  or  prefer- 
ments. 

And  first  for  men's  lives.  Though  these  are  things  for  which 
nature  knows  no  price  or  ransom ;  yet  I  appeal  to  universal 
experience,  whether  they  have  not,  in  many  men,  hung  often- 
times upon  a  very  slender  thread,  and  the  distance  between  them 
and  death  been  very  nice,  and  the  escape  wonderful.  There  have 
been  some  who  upon  a  slight  and  perhaps  groundless  occasion, 
have  gone  out  of  a  ship,  or  house,  and  the  ship  has  sunk,  and  the 
house  has  fallen,  immediately  after  their  departure. 

He  that,  in  a  great  wind,  suspecting  the  strength  of  his  house, 
betook  himself  to  his  orchard,  and  walking  there,  wTas  knocked  on 
the  head  by  a  tree,  falling  through  the  fury  of  a  sudden  gust, 
wanted  but  the  advance  of  one  or  two  steps,  to  have  put  him  out 
of  the  way  of  that  mortal  blow. 

He  that  being  subject  to  an  apoplexy,  used  still  to  carry  his 
remedy  about  him;  but,  upon  a  time,  shifting  his  clothes,  and 
not  taking  that  with  him,  chanced,  upon  that  very  day,  to  be  sur- 
prised with  a  fit,  and  to  die  in  it,  certainly  owTed  his  death  to  a 
mere  accident,  to  a  little  inadvertency  and  failure  of  memory. 
But  not  to  recount  too  many  particulars :  may  not  every  soldier, 
that  comes  alive  out  of  the  battle,  pass  for  a  living  monument  of  a 
benign  chance,  and  a  happy  providence  ?  For  was  he  not  in  the 
nearest  neighborhood  to  death?  And  might  not  the  bullet,  that 
perhaps  razed  his  cheek,  have  as  easily  gone  into  his  head  ?  and 
the  sword  that  glanced  upon  his  arm,  writh  a  little  diversion  have 
found  the  way  to  his  heart  ?  But  the  workings  of  Providence  are 
marvellous,  and  the  methods  secret  and  untraceable,  by  which  it 
disposes  of  the  lives  of  men. 

In  like  manner,  for  men's  health,  it  is  no  less  wonderful  to 
consider  to  what  strange  casualties  many  sick  persons  oftentimes 
owe  their  recovery.  Perhaps  an  unusual  draught  or  morsel,  or 
some  accidental  violence  of  motion,  has  removed  that  malady,  that 
for  many  years  has  baffled  the  skill  of  all  physicians.  So  that  in 
effect,  he  is  the  best  physician  that  has  the  best  luck ;  he  prescribes, 
but  it  is  chance  that  cures. 

That  person  that  (being  provoked  by  excessive  pain)  thrust  his 
dagger  into  his  body,  and  thereby,  instead  of  reaching  his 
vitals,  opened  an  imposthume,  the  unknown  cause  of  all  his  pain, 


ALL  CONTINGENCIES  DIRECTED  BY  PROVIDEINXE. 


131 


and  so  stabbed  himself  into  perfect  health  and  ease,  surely  had 
great  reason  to  acknowledge  chance  for  his  chirurgeon,  and  Provi- 
dence for  the  guider  of  his  hand. 

And  then  also  for  men's  reputation  ;  and  that  either  in  point  of 
wisdom  or  of  wit.  There  is  hardly  any  thing,  which  for  the 
most  part  falls  under  a  greater  chance.  If  a  man  succeeds  in  any 
attempt,  though  undertaken  with  never  so  much  folly  and  rashness, 
his  success  shall  vouch  him  a  politician,  and  good  luck  shall 
pass  for  deep  contrivance  ;  for  give  any  one  fortune,  and  he  shall 
be  thought  a  wise  man,  in  spite  of  his  heart ;  nay,  and  of  his  head 
too.  On  the  contrary,  be  a  design  never  so  artificially  laid,  and 
spun  in  the  finest  thread  of  policy,  if  it  chances  to  be  defeated  by 
some  cross  accident,  the  man  is  then  run  down  by  a  universal 
vogue :  his  counsels  are  derided,  his  prudence  questioned,  and  his 
person  despised. 

Ahithophel  was  as  great  an  oracle,  and  gave  as  good  counsel 
to  Absalom,  as  ever  he  had  given  to  David  ;  but  not  having  the 
good  luck  to  be  believed,  and  thereupon  losing  his  former  repute, 
he  thought  it  high  time  to  hang  himself.  And,  on  the  other  side, 
there  having  been  some,  who  for  several  years  have  been  fools  with 
tolerable  good  reputation,  and  never  discovered  themselves  to  be 
so,  till  at  length,  they  attempted  to  be  knaves  also,  but  wanted  art 
and  dexterity. 

And  as  the  repute  of  wisdom,  so  that  of  wit  also,  is  very 
casual.  Sometimes  a  lucky  saying,  or  a  pertinent  reply,  has 
procured  an  esteem  of  wit,  to  persons  otherwise  very  shallow, 
and  no  ways  accustomed  to  utter  such  things  by  any  standing 
ability  of  mind  ;  so  that  if  such  a  one  should  have  the  ill  hap  at 
any  time  to  strike  a  man  dead  with  a  smart  saying,  it  ought,  in 
all  reason  and  conscience,  to  be  judged  but  a  chance-medley ; 
the  poor  man,  God  knows,  being  noways  guilty  of  any  design 
of  wit. 

Nay,  even  where  there  is  a  real  stock  of  wit,  yet  the  wittiest 
sayings  and  sentences  will  be  found,  in  a  great  measure,  the 
issues  of  chance,  and  nothing  else  but  so  many  lucky  hits  of  a 
roving  fancy. 

For  consult  the  acutest  poets  and  speakers,  and  they  will  confess, 
that  their  quickest  and  most  admired  conceptions  were  such 
as  darted  into  their  minds  like  sudden  flashes  of  lightning,  they 
knew  not  how  nor  whence :  and  not  by  any  certain  consequence 
or  dependence  of  one  thought  upon  another,  as  it  is  in  matters  of 
ratiocination. 

Moreover,  sometimes  a  man's  reputation  rises  or  falls,  as  his 
memory  serves  him  in  a  performance  ;  and  yet  there  is  nothing 
more  fickle,  slippery,  and  less  under  command,  than  this  faculty-. 
So  that  many,  having  used  their  utmost  diligence  to  secure  a 
faithful  retention  of  the  things  or  words  committed  to  it,  yet 
after  all  cannot  certainly  know  where  it  will  trip  and  fail  them. 


132 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VIII. 


Any  sudden  diversion  of  the  spirits,  or  the  justling  in  of  a  tran- 
sient thought,  is  able  to  deface  those  little  images  of  things ;  and 
so  breaking  the  train  that  was  laid  in  the  mind,  to  leave  a  man  in 
the  lurch.  And  for  the  other  part  of  memory,  called  reminis- 
cence, which  is  the  retrieving  of  a  thing  at  present  forgot,  or 
but  confusedly  remembered,  by  setting  the  mind  to  hunt  over 
all  its  notions,  and  to  ransack  every  little  cell  of  the  brain : 
while  it  is  thus  busied,  how  accidentally  oftentimes  does  the 
thing  sought  for  offer  itself  to  the  mind !  And  by  what  small, 
petit  hints  does  the  mind  catch  hold  of,  and  recover  a  vanishing 
notion ! 

In  short,  though  wit  and  learning  are  certain  and  habitual  perfec- 
tions of  the  mind,  yet  the  declaration  of  them  (which  alone  brings 
the  repute)  is  subject  to  a  thousand  hazards).  So  that  every  wit 
runs  something  the  same  risk  with  the  astrologer,  who,  if  his  pre- 
dictions come  to  pass,  is  cried  up  to  the  stars,  from  whence  he  pre- 
tends to  draw  them  ;  but  if  not,  the  astrologer  himself  grows  more 
out  of  date  than  his  almanack. 

And  then,  in  the  fourth  place,  for  the  friendships  or  enmities 
that  a  man  contracts  in  the  world  ;  than  which  surely  there  is 
nothing  that  has  a  more  direct  and  potent  influence  upon  the 
whole  course  of  a  man's  life,  whether  as  to  happiness  or  misery ; 
yet  chance  has  the  ruling  stroke  in  them  all. 

A  man  by  mere  peradventure  lights  into  company,  possibly,  is 
driven  into  a  house  by  a  shower  of  rain  for  present  shelter,  and 
there  begins  an  acquaintance  with  a  person  ;  which  acquaintance 
and  endearment  grows  and  continues,  even  when  relations  fail,  and 
perhaps  proves  the  support  of  his  mind  and  of  his  fortunes  to  his 
dying  day. 

And  the  like  holds  in  enmities,  which  come  much  more  easily 
than  the  other.  A  word  unadvisedly  spoken  on  the  one  side,  or 
misunderstood  on  the  other;  any  the  least  surmise  of  neglect ; 
sometimes  a  bare  gesture ;  nay,  the  very  unsuitableness  of  one 
man's  aspect  to  another  man's  fancy,  has  raised  such  an  aversion 
to  him,  as  in  time  has  produced  a  perfect  hatred  of  him ;  and 
that  so  strong  and  so  tenacious,  that  it  has  never  left  vexing  and 
troubling  him,  till,  perhaps  at  length  it  has  worried  him  to  his 
grave  ;  yea,  and  after  death  too,  has  pursued  him  in  his  surviving 
shadow,  exercising  the  same  tyranny  upon  his  very  name  and 
memory. 

It  is  hard  to  please  men  of  some  tempers,  who  indeed  hardly 
know  what  will  please  themselves  ;  and  yet  if  a  man  does  not 
please  them,  which  is  ten  thousand  to  one  if  he  does,  if  they  can 
but  have  power  equal  to  their  malice  (as  sometimes  to  plague 
the  world,  God  lets  them  have),  such  a  one  must  expect  all  the 
mischief  that  power  and  spite,  lighting  upon  a  base  mind,  can 
possibly  do  him. 

In  the  last  place :  as  for  men's  employments  and  preferments, 


ALL  CONTINGENCIES  DIRECTED  BY  PROVIDENCE.  133 


every  man  that  sets  forth  into  the  world  comes  into  a  great 
lotterv,  and  draws  some  one  certain  profession  to  act,  and  live 
by,  but  knows  not  the  fortune  that  will  attend  him  in  it. 

One  man  perhaps  proves  miserable  in  the  study  of  the  law, 
who  might  have  flourished  in  that  of  physic  or  divinity. 
Another  runs  his  head  against  the  pulpit,  who  might  have  been 
very  serviceable  to  his  country  at  the  plough.  And  a  third 
proves  a  very  dull  and  heavy  philosopher,  who  possibly  would 
have  made  a  good  mechanic,  and  have  done  well  enough  at  the 
useful  philosophy  of  the  spade  or  the  anvil. 

Now  let  this  man  reflect  upon  the  time  when  all  these  several 
callings  and  professions  were  equally  offered  to  his  choice,  and 
consider  how  indifferent  it  was  once  for  him  to  have  fixed  upon 
any  one  of  them,  and  what  little  accidents  and  considerations 
cast  the  balance  of  his  choice  rather  one  way  than  the  other, 
and  he  will  find  how  easily  chance  may  throw  a  man  upon  a  pro- 
fession, which  all  his  diligence  cannot  make  him  fit  for. 

And  then  for  the  preferments  of  the  world,  he  that  would 
reckon  up  all  the  accidents  that  they  depend  upon,  may  as  well 
undertake  to  count  the  sands,  or  to  sum  up  infinity ;  so  that 
greatness,  as  well  as  an  estate,  may,  upon  this  account,  be  pro- 
perly called  a  man's  fortune,  forasmuch  as  no  man  can  state 
either  the  acquisition  or  preservation  of  it  upon  any  certain 
rules  ;  every  man,  as  well  as  the  merchant,  being  here  truly  an 
adventurer.  For  the  ways  by  which  it  is  obtained  are  various, 
and  frequently  contrary:  one  man,  by  sneaking  and  flattering, 
comes  to  riches  and  honour  (where  it  is  in  the  power  of  fools 
to  bestow  them) ;  upon  observation  whereof,  another  presently 
thinks  to  arrive  to  the  same  greatness  by  the  very  same  means ; 
but  striving  like  the  ass,  to  court  his  master,  just  as  the  spaniel 
had  done  before  him,  instead  of  being  stroked  and  made  much 
of,  he  is  only  rated  off  and  cudgelled  for  all  his  courtship. 

The  source  of  men's  preferments  is  most  commonly  the  will, 
humour,  and  fancy  of  persons  in  power ;  whereupon  when  a 
prince  or  grandee  manifests  a  liking  to  such  a  thing,  such  an  art, 
or  such  a  pleasure,  men  generally  set  about  to  make  themselves 
considerable  for  such  things,  and  thereby,  through  his  favour,  to 
advance  themselves  ;  and  at  length,  when  they  have  spent  their 
whole  time  in  them,  and  so  are  become  fit  for  nothing  else,  that 
prince  or  grandee  perhaps  dies,  and  another  succeeds  him,  quite 
of  a  different  disposition,  and  inclining  him  to  be  pleased  with 
quite  different  things  ;  whereupon  these  men's  hopes,  studies, 
and  expectations,  are  wholly  at  an  end.  And  besides,  though  the 
grandee  whom  they  build  upon  should  not  die,  or  quit  the  stage, 
yet  the  same  person  does  not  always  like  the  same  things  ;  for 
age  may  alter  his  constitution,  humour,  or  appetite  ;  or  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  affairs  may  put  him  upon  different  courses  and 
counsels  ;  every  one  of  which  incidents  wholly  alters  the  road  to 


134 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VIII. 


preferment.  So  that  those  who  travel  that  road  must  he,  like 
highwaymen,  very  dexterous  in  shifting  the  way  upon  every 
turn  ;  and  yet  their  very  doing  so  sometimes  proves  the  means 
of  their  being  found  out,  understood,  and  abhorred  ;  and  for  this 
very  cause,  that  they  who  are  ready  to  do  any  thing,  are  justly 
thought  fit  to  be  preferred  to  nothing. 

Caesar  Borgia  (base  son  to  pope  Alexander  VI.)  used  to  boast 
to  his  friend  Machiavel,  that  he  had  contrived  his  affairs  and 
greatness  into  such  a  posture  of  firmness,  that  whether  his  holy 
father  lived  or  died,  they  could  not  but  be  secure.  If  he  lived, 
there  could  be  no  doubt  of  them  ;  and  if  he  died,  he  laid  his  in- 
terest so,  as  to  overrule  the  next  election  as  he  pleased.  But  all 
this  while,  the  politician  never  thought  or  considered  that  he 
might  in  the  mean  time  fall  dangerously  sick,  and  that  sickness 
necessitate  his  removal  from  the  court,  and  during  that  his  ab- 
sence, his  father  die,  and  so  his  interest  decay,  and  his  mortal 
enemy  be  chosen  to  the  papacy,  as  indeed  it  fell  out.  So  that  for 
all  his  exact  plot,  down  was  he  cast  from  all  his  greatness,  and 
forced  to  end  his  days  in  a  mean  condition  ;  as  it  is  pity  but  all 
such  politic  opiniators  should. 

Upon  much  the  like  account,  we  find  it  once  said  of  an  emi- 
nent cardinal,  by  reason  of  his  great  and  apparent  likelihood  to 
step  into  St.  Peter's  chair,  that  in  two  conclaves  he  went  in  pope, 
and  came  out  again  cardinal. 

So  much  has  chance  the  casting  voice  in  the  disposal  of  all  the 
great  things  of  the  world.  That  which  men  call  merit,  is  a  mere 
nothing ;  for  even  when  persons  of  the  greatest  worth  and  merit 
are  preferred,  it  is  not  their  merit  but  their  fortune  that  prefers 
them.  And  then,  for  that  other  so  much  admired  thing  called 
policy,  it  is  but  little  better;  for  when  men  have  busied  them- 
selves, and  beat  their  brains  never  so  much,  the  whole  result  both 
of  their  counsels  and  their  fortunes  is  still  at  the  mercy  of  an 
accident.  And  therefore,  whosoever  that  man  was,  that  said,  that 
he  had  rather  have  a  grain  of  fortune  than  a  pound  of  wisdom, 
as  to  the  things  of  this  life,  spoke  nothing  but  the  voice  of 
wisdom  and  great  experience. 

And  now  I  am  far  from  affirming,  that  I  have  recounted  all, 
or  indeed  the  hundredth  part  of  those  casualities  of  human  life, 
that  may  display  the  full  compass  of  divine  providence ;  but 
surely  I  have  reckoned  up  so  many  as  sufficiently  enforce  the 
necessity  of  our  reliance  upon  it,  and  that  in  opposition  to  two 
extremes  that  men  are  usually  apt  to  fall  into. 

1.  Too  much  confidence  and  presumption  in  a  prosperous 
estate.  David,  after  his  deliverance  from  Saul,  and  his  victories 
over  all  his  enemies  round  about  him,  in  Ps.  xxx.  7,  8,  confesses, 
that  this  his  prosperity  had  raised  him  to  such  a  pitch  of  con- 
fidence, as  to  make  him  say,  "that  he  should  never  be  moved  ; 
God  of  his  favour  had  made  his  hill  so  strong :"  but  presently  he 


ALL  CONTINGENCIES  DIRECTED  BY  PROVIDENCE.  135 

adds,  almost  in  the  very  same  breath,  "  Thou  didst  hide  thy  face, 
and  I  was  troubled." 

The  sun  shines  in  his  full  brightness  but  the  very  moment 
before  he  passes  under  a  cloud.  Who  knows  what  a  day,  what 
an  hour,  nav,  what  a  minute  may  bring  forth  ?  He  who  builds 
upon  the  present,  builds  upon  the  narrow  compass  of  a  point ;  and 
where  the  foundation  is  so  narrow,  the  superstructure  cannot  be 
high  and  strong  too. 

Is  a  man  confident  of  his  present  health  and  strength  ?  Why, 
an  unwholesome  blast  of  air,  a  cold,  or  a  surfeit  taken  by  chance, 
mav  shake  in  pieces  his  hardy  fabric,  and  (in  spite  of  all  his 
youth  and  vigour)  send  him,  in  the  very  flower  of  his  3~ears, 
pining  and  drooping,  to  his  long  home.  Nay,  he  cannot,  with 
anv  assurance,  so  much  as  step  out  of  his  doors,  but,  unless  God 
commissions  his  protecting  angel  to  bear  him  up  in  his  hands, 
he  may  dash  his  foot  against  a  stone,  and  fall,  and  in  that  fall 
breathe  his  last. 

Or  is  a  man  confident  of  his  estate,  wealth,  and  power  ?  Why, 
let  him  read  of  those  strange,  unexpected  dissolutions  of  the 
great  monarchies  and  governments  of  the  world  :  governments 
that  once  made  such  a  noise,  and  looked  so  big  in  the  eyes  of 
mankind,  as  being  founded  upon  the  deepest  counsels  and  the 
strongest  force  ;  and  yet  by  some  slight  miscarriage  or  cross  acci- 
dent, which  let  in  ruin  and  desolation  upon  them  at  first  are  now 
so  utterlv  extinct,  that  nothing  remains  of  them  but  a  name, 
nor  are  there  the  least  signs  and  traces  of  them  to  be  found,  but 
only  in  story.  When,  I  say,  he  shall  have  well  reflected  upon 
all  this,  let  him  see  what  security  he  can  promise  himself  in  his 
own  little  personal  domestic  concerns,  which  at  the  best  have 
but  the  protection  of  the  laws  to  guard  and  defend  them,  which, 
God  knows,  are  far  from  being  able  to  defend  themselves. 

No  man  can  rationally  account  himself  secure,  unless  he  could 
command  all  the  chances  of  the  world :  but  how  should  he  com- 
mand them,  when  he  cannot  so  much  as  number  them  ?  Possi- 
bilities are  as  infinite  as  God's  power ;  and  whatsoever  may  come 
to  pass,  no  man  can  certainly  conclude  shall  not  come  to  pass. 

People  forget  how  little  it  is  that  they  know,  and  how  much 
less  it  is  that  they  can  do,  when  they  grow  confident  upon  any  pre- 
sent state  of  things.  There  is  no  one  enjoyment  that  a  man 
pleases  himself  in,  but  is  liable  to  be  lost  by  ten  thousand  acci- 
dents wholly  out  of  all  mortal  power  either  to  foresee  or  to  prevent. 
Reason  allows  none  to  be  confident,  but  Him  onlv  who  governs  the 
world,  who  knows  all  things,  and  can  do  all  tilings,  and  therefore 
can  neither  be  surprised  nor  overpowered. 

2.  The  other  extreme,  which  these  considerations  should  arm  the 
heart  of  man  against,  is,  utter  despondency  of  mind  in  a  time  of 
pressing  adversity. 

As  he  who  presumes  steps  into  the  throne  of  God  ;  so  he  that 


136 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  VIII. 


despairs  limits  an  infinite  power  to  a  finite  apprehension,  and 
measures  Providence  by  his  own  little  contracted  model.  But 
the  contrivances  of  Heaven  are  as  much  above  our  politics,  as 
beyond  our  arithmetic. 

Of  those  many  millions  of  casualties  which  we  are  not  aware 
of,  there  is  hardly  one  but  God  can  make  an  instrument  of  our 
deliverance.  And  most  men,  who  are  at  length  delivered  from 
any  great  distress  indeed,  find  that  they  are  so,  by  ways  that  they 
never  thought  of ;  ways  above  or  beside  their  imagination. 

And  therefore  let  no  man,  who  owns  the  belief  of  a  providence, 
grow  desperate  or  forlorn  under  any  calamity  or  strait  whatsoever ; 
but  compose  the  anguish  of  his  thoughts,  and  rest  his  amazed  spirits 
upon  this  one  consideration,  that  he  knows  not  which  way  the  lot 
may  fall,  or  what  may  happen  to  him  ;  he  comprehends  not  those 
strange  unaccountable  methods  by  which  Providence  may  dispose 
of  him. 

In  a  word,  to  sum  up  all  the  foregoing  discourse  :  since  the 
interest  of  governments  and  nations,  of  princes  and  private  per- 
sons, and  that,  both  as  to  life  and  health,  reputation  and  honour, 
friendships  and  enmities,  employments  and  preferments,  notwith- 
standing all  the  contrivance  and  power  that  human  nature  can 
exert  about  them,  remain  so  wholly  contingent,  as  to  us ;  surely  all 
the  reason  of  mankind  cannot  suggest  any  solid  ground  of  satis- 
faction, but  in  making  that  God  our  friend,  who  is  the  sole  and 
absolute  disposer  of  all  these  things :  and  in  carrying  a  conscience 
so  clear  towards  him,  as  may  encourage  us  with  confidence  to 
cast  ourselves  upon  him  ;  and  in  all  casualties  still  to  promise 
ourselves  the  best  events  from  his  Providence,  to  whom  nothing  is 
casual ;  who  constantly  wills  the  truest  happiness  to  those  that  trust 
in  him,  and  works  all  things  according  to  the  counsel  of  that  blessed 
will. 

To  whom  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise, 
might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  evermore. 
Amen. 


137 


SERMON  IX. 

THE  WISDOM  OF  THIS  WORLD. 
[Preached  at  Westminster  Abbey,  April  30,  1676.] 

1  Cor.  hi.  19. 

For  the  wisdom  of  this  world  is  foolishness  with  God 

"  The  wisdom  of  the  world,"  so  called  by  an  Hebraism,  fre- 
quent in  the  writings  of  this  apostle,  for  M  worldly  wisdom,"  is 
taken  in  scripture  in  a  double  sense. 

1.  For  that  sort  of  wisdom  that  consists  in  speculation,  called, 
both  by  St.  Paul,  and  the  professors  of  it,  philosophy ;  the  great 
idol  of  the  learned  part  of  the  heathen  world,  and  which  divided 
it  into  so  many  sects  and  denominations,  as  Stoics,  Peripatetics, 
Epicureans,  and  the  like  ;  it  was  professed  and  owned  by  them 
for  the  grand  rule  of  life,  and  certain  guide  to  man's  chief  happi- 
ness. But  for  its  utter  insufficiency  to  make  good  so  high  an 
undertaking,  we  find  it  termed  by  the  same  apostle,  Col.  ii.  8, 
"  vain  philosophy,"  and  1  Tim.  vi.  20,  "  science  falsely  so  called ;" 
and  a  full  account  of  its  uselessness  we  have  in  this,  1  Cor.  i.  21, 
where  the  apostle  speaking  of  it,  says,  "  that  the  world  by 
wisdom  knew  not  God."  Such  a  worthy  kind  of  wisdom  is  it, 
only  making  men  accurately  and  laboriously  ignorant  of  what 
they  were  most  concerned  to  know. 

2.  The  "  wisdom  of  this  world  "  is  sometimes  taken  in  scripture 
for  such  a  wisdom  as  lies  in  practice,  and  goes  commonly  by  the 
name  of  policy  ;  and  consists  in  a  certain  dexterity  or  art  of 
managing  business  for  a  man's  secular  advantage  :  and  so  being 
indeed  that  ruling  engine  that  governs  the  world,  it  both  claims 
and  finds  as  great  a  preeminence  above  all  other  kinds  of  know- 
ledge, as  government  is  above  contemplation,  or  the  leading  of 
an  army  above  the  making  of  syllogisms,  or  managing  the  little 
issues  of  a  dispute. 

And  so  much  is  the  very  name  and  reputation  of  it  affected 
and  valued  by  most  men,  that  they  can  much  rather  brook  their 
being  reputed  knaves,  than  for  their  honesty  be  accounted  fools, 
as  they  easily  may :  knave,  in  the  meantime,  passing  for  a  name 
of  credit,  where  it  is  only  another  word  for  politician. 

Now  this  is  is  the  wisdom  here  intended  in  the  text ;  namely, 
that  practical  cunning  that  shows  itself  in  political  matters,  and  has 
in  it  really  the  mystery  of  a  trade  or  craft.  So  that  in  this 
latter  part  of  ver.  19,  God  is  said  to  "  take  the  wise  in  their  own 
craftiness." 

Vol.  L— 18  m  2 


138 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IX. 


In  short,  it  is  a  kind  of  trick  or  sleight,  got  not  by  study,  but 
converse :  learned  not  from  books,  but  men  ;  and  those  also,  for 
the  most  part,  the  very  worst  of  men  of  all  sorts,  ways,  and  pro- 
fessions. So  that  if  it  be  in  truth  such  a  precious  jewel  as  the 
world  takes  it  for,  yet  as  precious  as  it  is,  we  see  that  they  are 
forced  to  rake  it  out  of  dunghills ;  and  accordingly,  the  apostle 
gives  it  a  value  suitable  to  its  extract,  branding  it  with  the  most 
degrading  and  ignominious  imputation  of  foolishness.  Which 
character  running  so  cross  to  the  general  sense  and  vogue  of 
mankind  concerning  it,  who  are  still  admiring,  and  even  adoring 
it,  as  the  mistress  and  queen  regent  of  all  other  arts  whatsoever, 
our  business,  in  the  following  discourse,  shall  be  to  inquire  into 
the  reason  of  the  apostle's  passing  so  severe  a  remark  upon  it : 
and  here,  indeed,  since  we  must  allow  it  for  an  art,  and  since 
every  art  is  properly  an  habitual  knowledge  of  certain  rules  and 
maxims,  by  which  a  man  is  governed  and  directed  in  his  actions, 
the  prosecution  of  the  words  will  most  naturally  lie  in  these  two 
things : 

I.  To  show  what  are  those  rules  or  principles  of  action  upon 
which  the  policy  or  wisdom  here  condemned  by  the  apostle  does 
proceed. 

II.  To  show  and  demonstrate  the  folly  and  absurdity  of  them  in 
relation  to  God,  in  whose  account  they  receive  a  very  different  esti- 
mate, from  what  they  have  in  the  world's. 

I.  And  for  the  first  of  these  ;  I  shall  set  down  four  several  rules 
or  principles,  which  that  policy  or  wisdom,  which  carries  so  great  a 
vogue  and  value  in  the  world,  governs  its  actions  by. 

1.  The  first  is,  That  a  man  must  maintain  a  constant  continued 
course  of  dissimulation  in  the  whole  tenor  of  his  behaviour. 
Where  yet,  we  must  observe,  that  dissimulation  admits  of  a 
twofold  acceptation:  (1.)  It  may  be  taken  for  a  bare  concealment 
of  one's  mind  ;  in  which  sense  we  commonly  say,  that  it  is  pru- 
dence to  dissemble  injuries:  that  is,  not  always  to  declare  our 
resentments  of  them ;  and  this  must  be  allowed  not  only  lawful, 
but,  in  most  of  the  affairs  of  human  life,  absolutely  necessary : 
for  certainly  it  can  be  no  man's  duty  to  write  his  heart  upon  his 
forehead,  and  to  give  all  the  inquisitive  and  malicious  world 
round  about  him  a  survey  of  those  thoughts,  which  it  is  the  pre- 
rogative of  God  only  to  know,  and  his  own  great  interest  to  Con- 
ceal. Nature  gives  every  one  a  right  to  defend  himself,  and 
silence  surely  is  a  very  innocent  defence. 

(2.)  Dissimulation  is  taken  for  a  man's  positive  professing 
himself  to  be  what  indeed  he  is  not,  and  what  he  resolves  not  to 
be  ;  and  consqeuently  it  employs  all  the  art  and  industry  imagi- 
nable, to  make  good  the  disguise  ;  and  by  false  appearances  to 
render  its  designs  the  less  visible,  that  so  they  may  prove  the 
more  effectual ;  and  this  is  the  dissimulation  here  meant,  which 


THE  WISDOM  OF  THIS  WORLD. 


139 


is  the  very  groundwork  of  all  worldly  policy.  The  superstruc- 
ture of  which  being  folly,  it  is  but  reason  that  the  foundation  of 
it  should  be  falsity. 

In  the  language  of  the  scripture  it  is  "  damnable  hypocrisy  ;" 
but  of  those  who  neither  believe  scripture  nor  damnation,  it  is 
voted  wisdom  ;  nay,  the  very  primum  mobile,  or  great  wheel, 
upon  which  all  the  various  arts  of  policy  move  and  turn ;  the  soul 
or  spirit,  which,  as  it  were,  animates  and  runs  through  all  the 
particular  designs  and  contrivances,  by  which  the  great  masters 
of  this  mysterious  wisdom  turn  about  the  world.  So  that  he 
who  hates  his  neighbour  mortally,  and  wisely  too,  must  profess 
all  the  dearness  and  friendship,  all  the  readiness  to  serve  him,  as 
the  phrase  now  is,  that  words  and  superficial  actions  can  express. 

When  he  purposes  one  thing,  he  must  swear,  and  lie,  and  damn 
himself  with  ten  thousand  protestations,  that  he  designs  the  clean 
contrary.  If  he  really  intends  to  ruin  and  murder  his  prince,  as 
Cromwell,  an  experienced  artist  in  that  perfidious  and  bloody 
faculty,  once  did  ;  he  must  weep,  and  call  upon  God,  use  all  the 
oaths  and  imprecations,  all  the  sanctified  perjuries,  to  persuade 
him  that  he  resolves  nothing  but  his  safety,  honour,  and  establish- 
ment, as  the  same  grand  exemplar  of  hypocrisy  did  before. 

If  such  persons  project  the  ruin  of  church  and  state,  they 
must  appeal  to  God  the  searcher  of  all  hearts,  that  they  are  ready 
to  sacrifice  their  dearest  blood  for  the  peace  of  the  one,  and  the 
purity  of  the  other. 

And  now,  if  men  will  be  prevailed  upon  so  far  as  to  renounce 
the  sure  and  impartial  judgments  of  sense  and  experience,  and  to 
believe  that  black  is  white,  provided  there  be  somebody  to  swear 
that  it  is  so ;  they  shall  not  want  arguments  of  this  sort,  good 
store,  to  convince  them  :  there  being  knights  of  the  post,  and 
holy  cheats  enough  in  the  world,  to  swear  the  truth  of  the 
broadest  contradictions,  and  the  highest  impossibilities,  where 
interest  and  pious  frauds  shall  give  them  an  extraordinary  call 
to  it. 

It  is  looked  upon  as  a  great  piece  of  weakness  and  unfitness 
for  business,  forsooth,  for  a  man  to  be  so  clear  and  open,  as  really 
to  think,  not  only  what  he  says,  but  what  he  swears ;  and  when 
he  makes  any  promise,  to  have  the  least  intent  of  performing  it, 
but  when  his  interest  serves  instead  of  veracity,  and  engages 
him  rather  to  be  true  to  another,  than  false  to  himself.  He 
only  now-a-days  speaks  like  an  oracle,  who  speaks  tricks  and 
ambiguities.  Nothing  is  thought  beautiful  that  is  not  painted  ; 
so  that,  what  between  French  fashions  and  Italian  dissimula- 
tions, the  old  generous  English  spirit,  which  heretofore  made 
this  nation  so  great  in  the  eyes  of  all  the  world  round  about  it, 
seems  utterly  lost  and  extinct ;  and  we  are  degenerated  into  a 
mean,  sharking,  fallacious,  undermining  way  of  converse  ;  there 
being  a  snare  and  a  trepan  almost  in  every  word  we  hear,  and 


140 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IX. 


every  action  we  see.  Men  speak  of  designs  of  mischief  and 
therefore  they  speak  in  the  dark.  In  short,  this  seems  to  be  the 
true  inward  judgment  of  all  our  politic  sages,  that  speech  was 
given  to  the  ordinary  sort  of  men,  whereby  to  communicate  their 
mind  ;  but  to  wise  men,  whereby  to  conceal  it. 

2.  The  second  rule  or  principle  upon  which  this  policy,  or 
wisdom  of  the  world,  does  proceed,  is,  That  conscience  and  religion 
ought  to  lay  no  restraint  upon  men  at  all,  when  it  lies  opposite 
to  the  prosecution  of  their  interest. 

The  great  patron  and  coryplwus  of  this  tribe,  Nicolas  Machi- 
avel,  laid  down  this  for  a  master  rule  in  his  political  scheme,  That 
the  show  of  religion  was  helpful  to  the  politician,  but  the  reality 
of  it  hurtful  and  pernicious.  Accordingly,  having  shown  how  the 
former  part  of  this  maxim  has  been  followed  by  these  men  in 
that  first  and  fundamental  principle  of  dissimulation  already 
spoken  to  by  us ;  we  come  now  to  show  further,  that  they  can- 
not with  more  art  dissemble  the  appearance  of  religion,  than  they 
can  with  ease  lay  aside  the  substance. 

The  politician,  whose  very  essence  lies  in  this,  that  he  be  a 
person  ready  to  do  any  thing  that  he  apprehends  for  his  advan- 
tage, must  first  of  all  be  sure  to  put  himself  into  a  state  of  liberty, 
as  free  and  large  as  his  principles ;  and  so  to  provide  elbow-room 
enough  for  his  conscience  to  lay  about,  and  have  its  full  play  in. 
And  for  that  purpose,  he  must  resolve  to  shake  off  all  inward 
awe  of  religion,  and  by  no  means  to  suffer  the  liberty  of  his 
conscience  to  be  enslaved,  and  brought  under  the  bondage  of 
observing  oaths,  or  the  narrowness  of  men's  opinions,  about 
turpe  et  honestum,  which  ought  to  vanish  when  they  stand  in 
competition  with  any  solid,  real  good  ;  that  is,  in  their  judgment, 
such  as  concerns  eating,  or  drinking,  or  taking  money. 

Upon  which  account,  these  children  of  darkness  seem  excel- 
lently well  to  imitate  the  wisdom  of  those  "  children  of  light," 
the  great  illuminati  of  the  late  times,  who  professedly  laid  down 
this  as  the  basis  of  all  their  proceedings  :  that  whatsoever  they 
said  or  did  for  the  present,  under  such  a  measure  of  light,  should 
oblige  them  no  longer,  when  a  greater  measure  of  light  should 
give  them  other  discoveries. 

And  this  principle  they  professed  was  of  great  use  to  them  : 
as  how  coulu  it  be  otherwise  if  it  fell  into  skilful  hands  ?  For 
since  this  light  was  to  rest  within  them,  and  the  judgment  of  it 
to  remain  wholly  in  themselves,  they  might  safely  and  uncon- 
trollably pretend  it  greater  or  less,  as  their  occasions  should 
enlighten  them. 

If  a  man  have  a  prospect  of  a  fair  estate,  and  sees  a  way  open 
to  it,  but  it  must  be  through  fraud,  violence,  and  oppression  ;  if 
he  sees  large  preferments  tendered  him,  but  conditionally  upon 
his  doing  base  and  wicked  offices  ;  if  he  sees  he  may  crush  his 
enemy,  but  that  it  must  be  by  slandering,  belying,  and  giving 


THE  WISDOM  OF  THIS  WORLD. 


141 


him  a  secret  blow  ;  and  conscience  shall  here,  according  to  its 
office,  interpose,  and  protest  the  illegality  and  injustice  of  such 
actions,  and  the  damnation  that  is  expressly  threatened  to  them 
by  the  word  of  God  :  the  thorough-paced  politician  must  pre- 
sently laugh  at  the  squeamishness  of  his  conscience,  and  read  it 
another  lecture,  and  tell  it,  that  just  and  unjust  are  but  names 
grounded  only  upon  opinion,  and  authorized  by  custom,  by 
which  the  wise  and  the  knowing  part  of  the  world  serve  them- 
selves upon  the  ignorant  and  easy  ;  and  that,  whatsoever  fond 
priests  may  talk,  there  is  no  devil  like  an  enemy  in  power,  no 
damnation  like  being  poor,  and  no  hell  like  an  empty  purse  ; 
and,  therefore,  that  those  courses  by  which  a  man  comes  to  rid 
himself  of  these  plagues,  are  ipso  facto  prudent,  and  consequently 
pious :  the  former  being,  with  such  wise  men,  the  only  measure 
of  the  latter.  And  the  truth  is,  the  late  times  of  confusion,  in 
which  the  heights  and  refinements  of  religion  were  professed,  in 
conjunction  with  the  practice  of  the  most  execrable  villanies 
that  were  ever  acted  upon  the  earth  ;  and  the  weakness  of  our 
church  discipline  since  its  restoration,  whereby  it  has  been 
scarcely  able  to  get  any  hold  on  men's  consciences,  and  much 
less  able  to  keep  it  ;  and  the  great  prevalence  of  that  atheistical 
doctrine  of  the  Leviathan,  and  the  unhappy  propagation  of 
Erastianism  ;  these  things,  I  say,  with  some  others,  have  been 
the  sad  and  fatal  causes  that  have  loosed  the  bands  of  conscience, 
and  eaten  out  the  very  heart  and  sense  of  Christianitv  amongst 
us,  to  that  degree,  that  there  is  now  scarce  any  religious  tie  or 
restraint  upon  persons,  but  merely  from  those  faint  remainders 
of  natural  conscience,  which  God  will  be  sure  to  keep  alive  upon 
the  hearts  of  men,  as  long  as  they  are  men,  for  the  great  ends  of 
his  own  providence,  whether  they  will  or  no.  So  that,  were  it 
not  for  this  sole  obstacle,  religion  is  not  now  so  much  in  danger 
of  being  divided  and  torn  piecemeal  by  sects  and  factions,  as  of 
being  at  once  devoured  by  atheism.  Which  being  so,  let  none 
wonder  that  irreligion  is  accounted  policy,  when  it  is  grown 
even  to  a  fashion  ;  and  passes  for  wit  with  some,  as  well  as  for 
wisdom  with  others.  For  certain  it  is,  that  advantage  now  sits 
in  the  room  of  concience,  and  steers  all  ;  and  no  man  is  esteemed 
any  ways  considerable  for  policy,  who  wears  religion  otherwise 
than  as  a  cloak  ;  that  is,  as  such  a  garment  as  may  both  cover 
and  keep  him  warm,  and  yet  hang  loose  upon  him  too. 

3.  The  third  rule  or  principle,  upon  which  this  policy  or  wis- 
dom of  the  world  proceeds  is,  that  a  man  ought  to  make  himself, 
and  not  the  public,  the  chief,  if  not  the  sole  end  of  all  his 
actions.  He  is  to  be  his  own  centre  and  circumference  too  : 
that  is,  to  draw  all  things  to  himself,  and  to  extend  nothing  be- 
yond himself :  he  is  to  make  the  greater  world  serve  the  less  ; 
and  not  only,  not  to  love  his  neighbour  as  himself,  but  indeed  to 
account  none  for  his  neighbour  but  himself. 


142  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  IX. 

And,  therefore,  to  die  or  suffer  for  his  country,  is  not  only 
exploded  by  him  as  a  great  paradox  in  politics,  and  fitter  for 
poets  to  sing  of  than  for  wise  men  to  practise  ;  but  also  to  make 
himself  so  much  as  one  penny  the  poorer,  or  to  forbear  one  base 
gain,  to  serve  his  prince,  to  secure  a  whole  nation,  or  to  credit  a 
church,  is  judged  by  him  a  great  want  of  experience,  and  a  piece 
of  romantic  melancholy  unbecoming  a  politician,  who  is  still  to 
look  upon  himself  as  his  prince,  his  country,  his  church  ;  nay, 
and  his  God  too. 

The  general  interest  of  the  nation  is  nothing  to  him,  but  only 
that  portion  of  it  that  he  either  does  or  would  possess.  It  is  not 
the  rain  that  waters  the  whole  earth,  but  that  which  falls  into 
his  own  cistern  that  must  relieve  him  :  not  the  common,  but  the 
enclosure,  that  must  make  him  rich. 

Let  the  public  sink  or  swim,  so  long  as  he  can  hold  up  his 
head  above  water :  let  the  ship  be  cast  away,  if  he  may  but  have 
the  benefit  of  the  wreck  :  let  the  government  be  ruined  by  his 
avarice,  if  by  the  same  avarice  he  can  scrape  together  so  much 
as  to  make  his  peace,  and  maintain  him  as  well  under  another  : 
let  foreigners  invade  and  spoil  the  land,  so  long  as  he  has  a  good 
estate  in  bank  elsewhere.  Peradventure,  for  all  this,  men  may 
curse  him  as  a  covetous  wretch,  a  traitor,  and  villain  :  but  such 
words  are  to  be  looked  upon  only  as  the  splendid  declaimings  of 
novices  and  men  of  heat,  who,  while  they  rail  at  his  person,  per- 
haps envy  his  misfortune  :  or  possibly  of  losers  and  malcontents, 
whose  portion  and  inheritance  is  a  freedom  to  speak.  But  a 
politician  must  be  above  words.  Wealth,  he  knows,  answers  all  ; 
and  if  it  brings  a  storm  upon  him,  will  provide  him  also  a  coat 
to  weather  it  out. 

That  such  thoughts  and  principles  as  these  lie  at  the  bottom 
of  most  .men's  actions ;  at  the  bottom,  do  I  say  ?  nay,  sit  at  the 
top,  and  visibly  hold  the  helm  in  the  management  of  the  weigh- 
tiest affairs  of  most  nations,  we  need  not  much  history,  nor  cu- 
riosity of  observation,  to  convince  us  ;  for  though  there  have  not 
been  wanting  such  heretofore,  as  have  practised  these  unworthy 
arts  (forasmuch  as  there  have  been  villains  in  all  places  and  all 
ages),  yet  now-a-days  they  are  owned  above  board  :  and  whereas 
men  formerly  had  them  in  design,  amongst  us  they  are  openly 
vouched,  argued,  and  asserted  in  common  discourse. 

But  this,  I  confess,  being  a  new,  unexemplified  kind  of  policy, 
scarce  comes  up  to  that  which  the  apostle  here  condemns  for  the 
"  wisdom  of  the  world,"  but  must  pass  rather  for  the  wisdom  of 
this  particular  age,  which,  as  in  most  other  things  it  stands  alone, 
scorning  the  examples  of  all  former  ages;  so  it  has  a  way  of 
policy  and  wisdom  also  peculiar  to  itself. 

4.  The  fourth  and  last  principle,  that  I  shall  mention,  upon 
which  this  wisdom  of  the  world  proceeds,  is  this  : 

That  in  showing  kindness,  or  doing  favours,  no  respect  at  all  is 


THE  WISDOM  OF  THIS  WORLD.  143 

to  be  had  to  friendship,  gratitude,  or  a  sense  of  honour;  but  that 
such  favours  are  to  be  done  only  to  the  rich  or  potent,  from 
whom  a  man  may  receive  a  further  advantage,  or  to  his  enemies, 
from  whom  he  may  otherwise  fear  a  mischief. 

I  have  here  mentioned  gratitude,  and  sense  of  honour,  being, 
as  I  may  so  speak,  a  man's  civil  conscience,  prompting  him  to 
many  things,  upon  the  accounts  of  common  decency,  which  reli- 
gion would  otherwise  bind  him  to,  upon  the  score  of  duty.  And 
it  is  sometimes  found,  that  some,  who  have  little  or  no  reverence 
for  religion,  have  yet  those  innate  seeds  and  sparks  of  generosity,  as 
make  them  scorn  to  do  such  things  as  would  render  them  mean  in 
the  opinion  of  sober  and  worthy  men  ;  and  with  such  persons, 
shame  is  instead  of  piety,  to  restrain  them  from  many  base  and  de- 
generate practices. 

But  now  our  politician  having  baffled  his  greater  conscience, 
must  not  be  nonplussed  with  inferior  obligations ;  and  having 
leaped  over  such  mountains,  at  length  poorly  lie  down  before  a 
mole-hill ;  but  he  must  add  perfection  to  perfection  ;  and  being 
past  grace,  endeavour,  if  need  be,  to  be  past  shame  too  ;  and  ac- 
cordingly, he  looks  upon  friendship,  gratitude,  and  sense  of  honour, 
as  terms  of  art  to  amuse  and  impose  upon  weak,  undesigning 
minds  :  for  an  enemy's  money,  he  thinks,  may  be  made  as  good 
a  friend  as  any  ;  and  gratitude  looks  backward,  but  policy  for- 
ward :  and  for  sense  of  honour,  if  it  impoverished^  a  man,  it  is 
in  his  esteem,  neither  honour  nor  sense. 

Whence  it  is,  that  now-a-days,  only  rich  men  or  enemies  are 
accounted  the  rational  objects  of  benefaction.  For  to  be  kind  to 
the  former  is  traffic  ;  and  in  these  times  men  present,  just  as  they 
soil  their  ground,  not  that  they  love  the  dirt,  but  that  they  expect  a 
crop  ;  and  for  the  latter,  the  politician  well  approves  of  the  In- 
dian's religion,  in  worshipping  the  devil,  that  he  may  do  him  no 
hurt,  how  much  soever  he  hates  him,  and  is  hated  by  him. 

But  if  a  poor,  old,  decayed  friend  or  relation,  whose  purse, 
whose  house  and  heart  had  been  formerly  free  and  open  to  such  a 
one,  shall  at  length  upon  change  of  fortune  come  to  him  with 
hunger  and  rags,  pleading  his  past  services  and  his  present  wants, 
and  so  crave  some  relief  of  one,  for  the  merit  and  memory  of  the 
other;  the  politician,  who  imitates  the  serpent's  wisdom,  must 
turn  his  deaf  ear  too  to  all  the  insignificant  charms  of  gratitude 
and  honour,  in  behalf  of  such  a  bankrupt,  undone  friend,  who 
having  been  already  used,  and  now  squeezed  dry,  is  only  fit  to 
be  cast  aside.  He  must  abhor  gratitude  as  a  worse  kind  of 
witchcraft,  which  only  serves  to  conjure  up  the  pale,  meagre, 
ghosts  of  dead,  forgotten  kindnesses,  to  haunt  and  trouble  him  ; 
still  respecting  what  is  past ;  whereas  such  wise  men  as  himself, 
in  such  cases,  account  all  that  is  past,  to  be  also  gone  ;  and  know, 
that  there  can  be  no  gain  in  refunding,  nor  any  profit  in  paying 
debts.     The  sole  measure  of  all  his  courtesies  is,  what  return 


144 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IX. 


they  will  make  him,  and  what  revenue  they  will  bring  him  in. 
His  expectations  govern  his  charity.  And  we  must  not  vouch 
any  man  for  an  exact  master  in  the  rules  of  our  modern  policy, 
but  such  a  one  as  hath  brought  himself  so  far  to  hate  and  de- 
spise the  absurdity  of  being  kind  upon  free  cost,  as  to  use  a  known 
expression,  not  so  much  as  to  tell  a  friend  what  it  is  o'clock  for 
nothing. 

And  thus  I  have  finished  the  first  general  head  proposed  from 
the  text,  and  shown  some  of  those  rules,  principles,  and  maxims, 
that  this  wisdom  of  the  world  acts  by  :  I  say,  some  of  them,  for  I 
neither  pretend  nor  desire  to  know  them  all. 

II.  I  come  now  to  the  other  general  head,  which  is  to  show  the 
folly  and  absurdity  of  these  principles  in  relation  to  God.  In  order 
to  which,  we  must  observe,  that  foolishness,  being  properly  a  man's 
deviation  from  right  reason  in  point  of  practice,  must  needs  consist 
in  one  of  these  two  things : 

1.  In  his  pitching  upon  such  an  end  as  is  unsuitable  to  his  con- 
dition :  or,  2.  In  his  pitching  upon  means  unsuitable  to  the  com- 
passing of  his  end. 

There  is  folly  enough  in  either  of  these  ;  and  my  business  shall 
be  to  show,  that  such  as  act  by  the  forementioned  rules  of  worldly 
wisdom,  are  eminently  foolish  upon  both  accounts. 

1.  And  first,  for  that  sort  of  foolishness  imputable  to  them; 
namely,  that  a  man,  by  following  such  principles,  pitches  upon  that 
for  his  end,  which  no  way  suits  his  condition. 

Certain  it  is,  and  indeed  self-evident,  that  the  "  wisdom  of  this 
world  "  looks  no  farther  than  this  world.  All  its  designs  and 
efficacy  terminate  on  this  side  heaven  ;  nor  does  policy  so  much 
as  pretend  to  any  more  than  to  be  the  great  art  of  raising  a  man 
to  the  plenties,  glories,  and  grandeurs  of  the  world.  And  if  it  ar- 
rives so  far  as  to  make  a  man  rich,  potent,  and  honourable,  it  has 
its  end,  and  has  done  its  utmost.  But  now,  that  a  man  cannot 
rationally  make  these  things  his  end,  will  appear  from  these  two 
considerations : 

(1.)  That  they  reach  not  the  measure  of  his  duration  or  being; 
the  perpetuity  of  which  surviving  this  mortal  state,  and  shooting 
forth  into  the  endless  eternities  of  another  world,  must  needs 
render  a  man  infinitely  miserable  and  forlorn,  if  he  has  no  other 
comforts  but  what  he  must  leave  behind  him  in  this.  For  nothing 
<:an  make  a  man  happy,  but  that  which  shall  last  as  long  as  he  lasts. 
And  all  these  enjoyments  are  much  too  short  for  an  immortal  soul 
to  stretch  itself  upon,  which  shall  persist  in  being,  not  only  when 
profit,  pleasure,  and  honour,  but  when  time  itself  shall  cease,  and 
be  no  more. 

Fo  man  can  transport  his  large  retinue,  his  sumptuous  fare,  and 
his  rich  furniture,  into  another  world.  Nothing  of  all  these 
things  can  continue  with  him  then,  but  the  memory  of  them. 


THE  WISDOM  OF  THIS  WORLD. 


145 


And  surely,  the  bare  remembrance  that  a  man  was  formerly  rich 
or  great,  cannot  make  him  at  all  happier  there,  where  an  infinite 
happiness  or  an  infinite  misery  shall  equally  swallow  up  the  sense 
of  these  poor  felicities.  It  may  indeed  contribute  to  his  misery, 
heighten  the  anguish,  and  sharpen  the  sting  of  conscience,  and  so 
add  fury  to  the  everlasting  flames,  when  he  shall  reflect  upon  the 
abuse  of  all  that  wealth  and  greatness  that  the  good  providence 
of  God  had  put  as  a  price  into  his  hand  for  worthier  purposes, 
than  to  damn  his  nobler  and  better  part,  only  to  please  and  gra- 
tify his  worse.  But  the  politician  has  an  answer  ready  for  all 
these  melancholy  considerations  ;  that  he,  for  his  part,  believes 
none  of  these  things  :  as  that  there  is  either  a  heaven,  or  a  hell,  or 
an  immortal  soul.  No,  he  is  too  great  a  friend  to  real  knowledge, 
to  take  such  troublesome  assertions  as  these  upon  trust.  Which 
if  it  be  his  belief,  as  no  doubt  it  is,  let  him  for  me  continue  in  it 
still,  and  stay  for  its  confutation  in  another  world  ;  which  if  he 
can  destroy  by  disbelieving,  his  infidelity  will  do  him  better  ser- 
vice, than  as  yet  he  has  any  cause  to  presume  that  it  can.  But, 

(2.)  Admitting  that  either  these  enjoyments  were  eternal,  or 
the  soul  mortal ;  and  so,  that  one  way  or  other  they  were  com- 
mensurate to  its  duration  ;  yet  still  they  cannot  be  an  end  suit- 
able to  a  rational  nature,  forasmuch  as  they  fill  not  the  measure 
of  its  desires.  The  foundation  of  all  man's  unhappiness  here  on 
earth,  is  the  great  disproportion  between  his  enjoyments  and  his 
appetites ;  which  appears  evidently  in  this,  that  let  a  man  have 
never  so  much,  he  is  still  desiring  something  or  other  more. 
Alexander,  we  know,  was  much  troubled  at  the  scantiness  of  na- 
ture itself,  that  there  were  no  more  worlds  for  him  to  disturb  ; 
and,  in  this  respect,  every  man  living  has  a  soul  as  great  as  Alex- 
ander ;  and  put  under  the  same  circumstances,  would  own  the 
very  same  dissatisfactions. 

Now  this  is  most  certain;  that  in  spiritual  natures,  so  much  as 
there  is  of  desire,  so  much  there  is  also  of  capacity  to  receive.  I 
do  not  say,  there  is  always  a  capacity  to  receive  the  very  thing 
they  desire  ;  for  that  may  be  impossible  :  but  for  the  degree  of 
happiness  that  they  propose  to  themselves  from  that  thing,  this,  I 
say,  they  are  capable  of.  And  as  God  is  said  to  have  "  made  man 
after  his  own  image,"  so  upon  this  quality  he  seems  peculiarly  to 
have  stamped  the  resemblance  of  his  infinity :  for  man  seems  as 
boundless  in  his  desires,  as  God  is  in  his  being  ;  and  therefore 
nothing  but  God  himself  can  satisfy  him.  But  the  great  in- 
equality of  all  things  else  to  the  appetites  of  a  rational  soul  ap- 
pears yet  further  from  this  :  that  in  all  these  worldly  things,  that 
a  man  pursues  with  the  greatest  eagerness  and  intention  of  mind 
imaginable,  he  finds  not  half  the  pleasure  in  the  actual  possession 
of  them,  that  he  proposed  to  himself  in  the  expectation.  Which 
shows,  that  there  is  a  great  cheat  or  lie  which  overspreads  the 

Vol,  I.— 19  N 


146 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IX. 


world,  while  all  things  here  below  beguile  men's  expectations, 
and  their  expectations  cheat  their  experience. 

Let  this  therefore  be  the  first  thing,  in  which  "  the  foolishness 
of  this  worldly  wisdom  is  manifest."  Namely,  that  by  it  a  man 
proposes  to  himself  an  end  wholly  unsuitable  to  his  condition  ;  as 
bearing  no  proportion  to  the  measure  of  his  duration,  or  the  vast- 
ness  of  his  desires. 

2.  The  other  thing,  in  which  foolishness  is  seen,  is  a  man's 
pitching  upon  means  unsuitable  to  that  which  he  has  made  his 
end. 

And  here  we  will,  for  the  present,  suppose  the  things  of  the 
world  to  have  neither  that  shortness  nor  emptiness  in  them,  that 
we  have  indeed  proved  them  to  have.  But  that  they  are  so  ade- 
quate to  all  the  concerns  of  an  intelligent  nature,  that  they  may 
be  rationally  fixed  upon  by  men,  as  the  ultimate  end  of  all  their 
designs ;  yet  the  folly  of  this  wisdom  appears  in  this,  that  it  sug- 
gests those  means  for  the  acquisition  of  these  enjoyments,  that 
are  no  ways  fit  to  compass  or  acquire  them,  and  that  upon  a 
double  account. 

(1.)  That  they  are  in  themselves  unable  and  insufficient  for: 
and,  (2.)  That  they  are  frequently  opposite  to  a  successful  attain- 
ment of  them. 

(1.)  And  first  for  their  insufficiency.  Let  politicians  contrive 
as  accurately,  project  as  deeply,  and  pursue  what  they  have  thus 
contrived  and  projected,  as  diligently  as  it  is  possible  for  human 
wit  and  industry  to  do ;  yet  still  the  success  of  all  depends  upon 
the  favour  of  an  overruling  hand.  For  God  expressly  claims  it 
as  a  special  part  of  his  prerogative,  to  have  the  entire  disposal  of 
riches,  honours,  and  whatsoever  else  is  apt  to  command  the  desires 
of  mankind  here  below,  Deut.  viii.  18,  "  It  is  the  Lord  thy  God 
that  giveth  thee  power  to  get  wealth."  And  in  1  Sam.  ii.  30,  God 
peremptorily  declares  himself  the  sole  fountain  of  honour,  telling 
us,  that  "  those  that  honour  him  shall  be  honoured  ;  and  those 
that  despise  him  shall  be  lightly  esteemed." 

And  then  for  dignities  and  preferments,  we  have  the  word  of 
one,  that  could  dispose  of  these  things  as  much  as  kings  could 
do,  Prov.  xxix.  26,  where  he  tells  us,  that  "  many  seek  the  ruler's 
favour  ;"  that  is,  apply  themselves  both  to  his  interest  and  humour, 
with  all  the  arts  of  flattery  and  obsequiousness,  the  surest  and 
readiest  ways,  one  would  think,  to  advance  a  man  ;  and  yet,  after 
all,  it  follows  in  the  next  words,  that  "  every  man's  judgment 
cometh  of  the  Lord."  And  that,  whatsoever  may  be  expected 
here,  it  is  resolved  only  in  the  court  of  heaven,  whether  the  man 
shall  proceed  favourite  in  the  courts  of  princes,  and  after  all  his 
artificial  attendance  come  to  sit  at  the  right  hand,  or  be  made  a 
footstool.  So  that  upon  full  trial  of  all  the  courses  that  policy 
could  either  devise  or  practise,  the  most  experienced  masters 
of  it  have  been  often  forced  to  sit  down  with  that  complaint  of 


THE  WISDOM  OF  THIS  WORLD. 


147 


the  disciples,  "  We  have  toiled  all  night,  and  have  caught  nothing." 
For  do  we  not  sometimes  see  that  traitors  can  be  out  of  favour,  and 
knaves  be  beggars,  and  lose  their  estates,  and  be  stripped  of  their 
offices  as  well  as  honester  men  ? 

And  why  all  this  ?  Surely  not  always  for  want  of  craft  to 
spy  out  where  their  game  lay;  nor  yet  for  want  of  irreligion 
to  give  them  all  the  scope  of  ways  lawful  and  unlawful,  to 
prosecute  their  intentions:  but  because  the  providence  of  God 
strikes  not  in  with  them,  but  dashes  and  even  dispirits  all  their 
endeavours,  and  makes  their  designs  heartless  and  ineffectual.  So 
that  it  is  not  their  seeing  this  man,  their  belying  another,  nor 
their  sneaking  to  a  third,  that  shall  be  able  to  do  their  business, 
when  the  designs  of  Heaven  will  be  served  by  their  disappoint- 
ment. And  this  is  the  true  cause  why  so  many  politic  concep- 
tions, so  elaborately  formed  and  wrought,  and  grown  at  length 
ripe  for  delivery,  do  yet,  in  the  issue,  miscarry  and  prove  abor- 
tive ;  for,  being  come  to  the  birth,  the  all-disposing  providence 
of  God  denies  them  strength  to  bring  forth.  And  thus  the  authors 
of  them  having  missed  of  their  mighty  aims,  are  fain  to  retreat 
with  frustration  and  a  baffle  ;  and  having  played  the  knave  unsuc- 
cessfully, to  have  the  ill  luck  to  pass  for  fools  too. 

(2.)  The  means  suggested  by  policy  and  worldly  wisdom,  for 
the  attainment  of  these  earthly  enjoyments,  are  unfit  for  that 
purpose,  not  only  upon  the  account  of  their  insufficiency  for,  but 
also  of  their  frequent  opposition  and  contrariety  to,  the  accom- 
plishment of  such  ends ;  nothing  being  more  usual,  than  for  these 
unchristian  fishers  of  men  to  be  fatally  caught  in  their  own  nets  ; 
for  does  not  the  text  expressly  say,  that  "  God  taketh  the  wise 
in  their  own  craftiness  ?  And  has  not  our  own  experience  suffi- 
ciently commented  upon  the  text,  when  we  have  seen  some  by 
the  very  same  ways,  by  which  they  had  designed  to  rise  uncon- 
trollably, and  to  clear  off  all  obstructions  before  their  ambition, 
to  have  directly  procured  their  utter  downfall,  and  to  have  broken 
their  necks  from  the  very  ladder,  by  which  they  had  thought  to 
have  climbed  as  high  as  their  father  Lucifer ;  and  there  from  the 
top  of  their  greatness  to  have  looked  down  with  scorn  upon  all 
below  them?  Such  persons  are  the  proper  and  lawful  objects  of 
derision,  forasmuch  as  God  himself  laughs  at  them. 

Haman  wanted  nothing  to  complete  his  greatness  but  a  gallows 
upon  which  to  hang  Mordecai  ;  but  it  mattered  not  for  whom  he 
provided  the  gallows,  when  Providence  designed  the  rope  for  him. 

With  what  contempt  does  the  apostle  here,  in  the  20th  verse  of 
this  third  chapter  of  the  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  repeat 
those  words  of  the  psalmist  concerning  all  the  fine  artifices  of 
worldly  wisdom  ;  "  The  Lord,"  says  he,  "  knoweth  the  thoughts 
of  the  wise,  that  they  are  vain."  All  their  contrivances  are  but 
thin,  slight,  despicable  things,  and  for  the  most  part,  destructive  of 
themselves;  nothing  being  more  equal  in  justice,  and  indeed 


148 


DR.  SOUTH' S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IX. 


more  natural  in  the  direct  consequence  and  connexion  of  effects 
and  causes,  than  for  men  wickedly  wise  to  outwit  themselves,  and 
for  such  as  wrestle  with  Providence  to  trip  up  their  own  heels. 

It  is  clear  therefore,  that  the  charge  of  this  second  sort  of  foolish- 
ness is  made  good  upon  worldly  wisdom  ;  for  that  having  made  men 
pitch  upon  an  end  unfit  for  their  condition,  it  also  makes  them  pitch 
upon  means  unfit  to  attain  that  end.  And  that  both  by  reason  of 
their  inability  for,  and  frequent  contrariety  to,  the  bringing  about 
such  designs. 

This,  I  say,  has  been  made  good  in  the  general ;  but  since  par- 
ticulars convince  with  greater  life  and  evidence,  we  will  resume  the 
forementioned  principles  of  the  politician,  and  show  severally  in 
each  of  them,  how  little  efficacy  they  have  to  advance  the  practisers 
of  them  to  the  things  they  aspire  to  by  them. 

1.  And  first,  for  his  first  principle,  That  the  politician  must 
maintain  a  constant,  habitual  dissimulation.  Concerning  which  I 
shall  lay  down  this  as  certain ;  that  dissimulation  can  be  no 
further  useful  than  it  is  concealed,  forasmuch  as  no  man  will  trust 
a  known  cheat :  and  it  is  also  as  certain,  that  as  some  men  use 
dissimulation  for  their  interest,  so  others  have  an  interest  strongly 
engaging  them  to  use  all  the  art  and  industry  they  can  to  find  it 
out,  and  to  assure  themselves  of  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  those 
with  whom  they  deal ;  which  renders  it  infinitely  hard,  if  not 
morally  impossible,  for  a  man  to  carry  on  a  constant  course  of 
dissimulation  without  discovery.  And  being  once  discovered,  it 
is  not  only  no  help,  but  the  greatest  impediment  of  action  in  the 
world.  For  since  man  is  but  of  a  very  limited,  narrow  power  in 
his  own  person,  and  consequently  can  effect  no  great  matter, 
merely  by  his  own  personal  strength,  but  as  he  acts  in  society 
and  conjunction  with  others,  without  first  engaging  their  trust; 
and  moreover,  since  men  will  trust  no  further  than  they  judge  a 
person  for  his  sincerity  fit  to  be  trusted ;  it  follows,  that  a  disco- 
vered dissembler  can  achieve  nothing  great  or  considerable ;  for 
not  being  able  to  gain  men's  trust,  he  cannot  gain  their  con- 
currence, and  so  is  left  alone  to  act  singly,  and  upon  his  own 
bottom  ;  and,  while  that  is  the  sphere  of  his  activity,  all  that  he 
can  do  must  needs  be  contemptible.  We  know  how  successful 
the  late  usurper*  was,  while  his  army  believed  him  real  in  his  zeal 
against  kingship ;  but,  when  they  found  out  the  imposture,  upon 
his  aspiring  to  the  same  himself  he  was  presently  deserted  and 
opposed  by  them,  and  never  able  to  crown  his  usurped  greatness 
with  the  addition  of  that  title,  which  he  so  passionately  thirsted 
after.  Add  to  this  the  judgment  of  as  great  an  English  author  as 
ever  wrote,  with  great  confidence  affirming,  "  That  the  ablest  men 
that  ever  were,  had  all  an  openness  and  frankness  of  deal- 
ing ;  and  that,  if  at  any  time  such  did  dissemble,  their  dissimu- 
lation took  effect,  merely  in  the  strength  of  that  reputation  they 

*  Cromwell. 


HE  WISDOM  OF  THIS  WORLD. 


149 


had  gained  by  their  veracity  and  clear  dealing  in  the  main." 
From  all  which  it  follows,  that  dissimulation  can  be  of  no  further 
use  to  a  man,  than  just  to  guard  him  within  the  compass  of  his 
own  personal  concerns  ;  which  yet  may  be  more  easily,  and  not 
less  effectually  done,  by  that  silence  and  reversedness  that  every 
man  may  innocently  practise,  without  the  putting  on  of  any  con- 
trary disguise. 

2.  The  politician's  second  principle  was,  That  conscience,  or 
religion,  ought  never  to  stand  between  any  man  and  his  temporal 
advantage.  Which  indeed  is  properly  atheism;  and,  so  far  as  it  is 
practised,  tends  to  the  dissolution  of  society,  the  bond  of  which 
is  religion.  Forasmuch  as  a  man's  happiness  or  misery  in  his 
converse  with  other  men  depends  chiefly  upon  their  doing  or  not 
doing  those  things  which  human  laws  can  take  no  cognizance  of ; 
such  as  are  all  actions  capable  of  being  done  in  secret,  and  out  of 
the  view  of  mankind,  which  yet  have  the  greatest  influence  upon 
our  neighbour,  even  in  his  nearest  and  dearest  concerns.  And  if 
there  be  no  inward  sense  of  religion  to  awe  men  from  the  doing 
unjust  actions,  provided  they  can  do  them  without  discovery,  it 
is  impossible  for  any  man  to  sit  secure  or  happy  in  the  possession 
of  any  thing  that  he  enjoys.  And  this  inconvenience  the  poli- 
tician must  expect  from  others,  as  wrell  as  they  have  felt  from 
him,  unless  he  thinks  that  he  can  engross  this  principle  to  his 
own  practice,  and  that  others  cannot  be  as  false  and  atheistical 
as  himself,  especially  having  had  the  advantage  of  his  copy  to 
write  after. 

3.  The  third  principle  was,  That  the  politician  ought  to  make 
himself,  and  not  the  public,  the  chief,  if  not  the  sole  end  of  all 
that  he  does. 

But  here  we  shall  quickly  find,  that  the  private  spirit  will 
prove  as  pernicious  in  temporals,  as  ever  it  did  in  spirituals.  For 
while  every  particular  member  of  the  public  provides  singly  and 
solely  for  itself,  the  several  joints  of  the  body  politic  do  thereby 
separate  and  disunite,  and  so  become  unable  to  support  the  whole  ; 
and  when  the  public  interest  once  fails,  let  private  interests  sub- 
sist if  they  can,  and  prevent  a  universal  ruin  from  involving  in 
it  particulars.  It  is  not  a  man's  wealth  that  can  be  sure  to  save 
him,  if  the  enemy  be  wise  enough  to  refuse  part  of  it  tendered 
as  a  ransom,  when  it  is  as  easy  for  him  to  destroy  the  owner,  and 
to  take  the  whole.  When  the  hand  finds  itself  well  warmed  and 
covered,  let  it  refuse  the  trouble  of  feeding  the  mouth  or  guarding 
the  head,  till  the  body  be  starved  or  killed,  and  then  we  shall  see 
how  it  will  fare  with  the  hand.  The  Athenians,  the  Romans, 
and  all  other  nations  that  grew  great  out  of  little  or  nothing,  did 
so  merely  by  the  public-mindedness  of  particular  persons  ;  and 
the  same  courses  that  first  raised  nations  and  governments  must 
support  them.  So  that,  were  there  no  such  thing  as  religion, 
prudence  were  enough  to  enforce  this  upon  all. 

n  2 


150 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  IX. 


For  our  own  parts,  let  us  reflect  upon  our  glorious  and  re- 
nowned English  ancestors,  men  eminent  in  church  and  state,  and 
we  shall  find  that  this  was  the  method  by  which  they  preserved 
both.  We  have  succeeded  into  their  labours,  and  the  fruits  of 
them ;  and  it  will  both  concern  and  become  us  to  succeed  also 
into  their  principles.  For  it  is  no  man's  duty  to  be  safe  or  to  be 
rich ;  but  I  am  sure  it  is  the  duty  of  every  one  to  make  good  his 
trust.  And  it  is  a  calamity  to  a  whole  nation,  that  any  man 
should  have  a  place  or  an  employment  more  large  and  public 
than  his  spirit. 

4.  The  fourth  and  last  principle  mentioned,  was,  That  the 
politician  must  not,  in  doing  kindnesses,  consider  his  friends,  but 
only  gratify  rich  men  or  enemies.  Which  principle,  as  to  that 
branch  of  it  relating  to  enemies,  was  certainly  first  borrowed  and 
fetched  up  from  the  very  bottom  of  hell  ;  and  uttered,  no  doubt, 
by  particular  and  immediate  inspiration  of  the  devil.  And  yet, 
as  much  of  the  devil  as  it  carries  in  it,  it  neither  is  nor  can  be 
more  villanous  and  detestable,  than  it  is  really  silly,  senseless, 
and  impolitic. 

But  to  go  over  the  several  parts  of  this  principle  ;  and  to 
begin  with  the  supposed  policy  of  gratifying  only  the  rich  and 
opulent.  Does  our  wise  man  think  that  the  grandee,  whom  he 
so  courts,  does  not  see  through  all  the  little  plots  of  his  court- 
ship, as  well  as  he  himself ;  and  so,  at  the  same  time,  while  he 
accepts  the  gift,  laugh  in  his  sleeve  at  the  design,  and  despise 
the  giver? 

But,  for  the  neglect  of  friends,  as  it  is  the  height  of  baseness, 
so  it  can  never  be  proved  rational,  till  we  prove  the  person  using 
it  omnipotent  and  self- sufficient,  and  such  as  can  never  need  any 
mortal  assistance.  But  if  he  be  a  man,  that  is,  a  poor,  weak 
creature,  subject  to  change  and  misery,  let  him  know  that  it  is 
the  friend  only  that  God  has  made  for  the  day  of  adversity,  as 
the  most  suitable  and  sovereign  help  that  humanity  is  capable  of. 
And  those,  though  in  heighest  place,  who  slight  and  disoblige 
their  friends,  shall  infallibly  come  to  know  the  value  of  them,  by 
having  none  when  they  shall  most  need  them. 

That  prince  that  maintains  the  reputation  of  a  true,  fast, 
generous  friend,  has  an  army  always  ready  to  fight  for  him, 
maintained  to  his  hand  without  pay. 

As  for  the  other  part  of  this  principle,  that  concerns  the 
gratifying  of  enemies  ;  it  is,  to  say  no  more,  an  absurdity  parallel 
to  the  former.  For  when  a  man  shall  have  done  all  he  can, 
given  all  he  has,  to  oblige  an  enemy,  he  shall  find  that  he  has 
armed  him  indeed,  but  not  at  all  altered  him. 

The  scripture  bids  us  "  pray  for  our  enemies,"  and  "  love  our 
enemies,"  but  no  where  does  it  bid  us  trust  our  enemies ;  nay,  it 
strictly  cautions  us  against  it :  Prov.  xxvi.  25,  "  When  he 
speaketh  thee  fair,"  says  the  text,  "  believe  him  not ;  for  there 


THE  WISDOM  OF  THIS  WORLD. 


151 


are  yet  seven  abominations  in  his  heart."  And,  in  good  earnest, 
it  would  be  a  rarity  worth  the  seeing,  could  any  one  show  us 
such  a  thing  as  a  perfectly  reconciled  enemy.  Men  are  generally 
credulous  at  first,  and  will  not  take  up  this  great  and  safe  truth 
at  the  cost  of  other  men's  experience,  till  they  come  to  be 
bitten  into  a  sense  of  it  by  their  own ;  but  are  apt  to  take  fair 
professions,  fawning  looks,  treats,  entertainments,  visits,  and  such 
like  pitiful  stuff,  for  friendship  and  reconcilement,  and  so  to 
admit  the  serpent  into  their  bosom ;  but  let  them  come  once  to 
depend  upon  this  new  made  friend,  or  reconciled  enemy,  in  any 
great  or  real  concern  of  life,  and  they  shall  find  him  "  false  as 
hell,  and  cruel  as  the  grave."  And  I  know  nothing  more  to  be 
wondered  at,  than  that  those  reconcilements  which  are  so  difficult, 
and  even  next  to  impossible  in  the  effect,  should  yet  be  so  fre- 
quent in  the  attempt :  especially  since  the  reason  of  this  difficulty 
lies  as  deep  as  nature  itself;  which,  after  it  has  done  an  injury, 
will  for  ever  be  suspicious  ;  and  I  would  fain  see  the  man  that  can 
perfectly  love  the  person  whom  he  suspects. 

There  is  a  noted  story  of  Hector  and  Ajax,  who  having  com- 
bated one  another,  ended  that  combat  in  a  reconcilement,  and 
testified  that  reconcilement  by  mutual  presents  ;  Hector  giving 
Ajax  a  sword,  and  Ajax  presenting  Hector  with  a  belt.  The 
consequence  of  which  was,  that  Ajax  slew  himself  with  the  sword 
given  him  by  Hector,  and  Hector  was  dragged  about  the  walls  of 
Troy  by  the  belt  given  him  by  Ajax.  Such  are  the  gifts,  such  are 
the  killing  kindnesses  of  reconciled  enemies. 

Confident  men  may  try  what  conclusions  they  please,  at  their 
own  peril;  but  let  history  be  consulted,  reason  heard,  and  ex- 
perience called  in  to  speak  impartially  what  it  has  found,  and  I 
believe  they  will  all  with  one  voice  declare,  that  whatsoever  the 
grace  of  God  may  do  in  the  miraculous  change  of  men's  hearts  ; 
yet,  according  to  the  common  methods  of  the  world,  a  man  may  as 
well  expect  to  make  the  devil  himself  his  friend,  as  an  enemy  that 
has  given  him  the  first  blow. 

And  thus  I  have  gone  over  the  two  general  heads  proposed  from 
the  words,  and  shown  both  what  those  principles  are,  upon  which 
this  wisdom  of  the  world  does  proceed ;  and  also  wherein  the  folly 
and  absurdity  of  them  does  consist. 

And  now  into  what  can  we  more  naturally  improve  the  whole 
foregoing  discourse,  than  into  that  practical  inference  of  our 
apostle,  in  the  verse  before  the  text  ?  that  "  if  any  man  desires 
the  reputation  of  wisdom,  he  should  become  a  fool,  that  he  may 
be  wise  ;"  that  is,  a  fool  to  the  world,  that  he  may  be  wise 
to  God. 

Let  us  not  be  ashamed  of  the  folly  of  being  sincere  and  with- 
out guile ;  without  traps  and  snares  in  our  converse ;  of  being 
fearful  to  build  our  estates  upon  the  ruin  of  our  consciences ; 
of  preferring  the  public  good  before  our  own  private  emolument ; 


152 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS.  [sERM.  IX. 


and  lastly,  of  being  true  to  all  the  offices  of  friendship,  the  obliga- 
tions of  which  are  sacred,  and  will  certainly  be  exacted  of  us  by 
the  great  Judge  of  all  our  actions.  I  say,  let  us  not  blush  to  be 
found  guilty  of  all  these  follies,  as  some  account  them,  rather  than 
to  be  expert  in  that  kind  of  wisdom,  that  God  himself,  the  great 
fountain  of  wisdom,  has  pronounced  to  be  "  earthly,  sensual, 
devilish ;"  and  of  the  wretched  absurdity  of  which  all  histories, 
both  ecclesiastical  and  civil,  have  given  us  such  pregnant  and 
convincing  examples. 

Reflect  upon  Ahithophel,  Haman,  Sejanus,  Caesar  Borgia,  and 
other  such  masters  of  the  arts  of  policy,  who  thought  they  had 
fixed  themselves  upon  so  sure  a  bottom,  that  they  might  even 
defy  and  dare  Providence  to  the  face  ;  and  yet  how  did  God  bring 
an  absolute  disappointment,  like  one  great  blot,  over  all  their  fine, 
artificial  contrivances  ?  Every  one  of  those  mighty  and  pro- 
found sages  coming  to  a  miserable  and  disastrous  end. 

The  consideration  of  which,  and  the  like  passages,  one  would 
think,  should  make  men  grow  weary  of  dodging  and  showing 
tricks  with  God  in  their  own  crooked  ways ;  and  even  force  them 
to  acknowledge  it  for  the  surest  and  most  unfailing  prudence, 
wholly  to  commit  their  persons  and  concerns  to  the  wise  and 
good  providence  of  God,  in  the  strait  and  open  ways  of  his  own 
commands. 

Who,  we  may  be  confident,  is  more  tenderly  concerned  for  the 
good  of  those  that  truly  fear  and  serve  him,  than  it  is  possible 
for  the  most  selfish  of  men  to  be  concerned  for  themselves  ;  and 
who,  in  all  the  troubles  and  disturbances,  all  the  cross,  difficult, 
and  perplexing  passages  that  can  fall  out,  will  be  sure  to  guide  all 
to  this  happy  issue,  "  that  all  things  shall  work  together  for  good 
to  those  that  love  God." 

To  which  God,  infinitely  wise,  holy,  and  just,  be  rendered  and 
ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion, 
both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


153 


SERMON  X. 

GOOD  INTENTIONS  NO  EXCUSE  FOR  BAD  ACTIONS. 
[Preached  at  Christ  Church,  Oxon,  before  the  University,  May  3,  1685.] 

2  Cor.  vbl  12. 

For  if  there  be  first  a  willing  mind,  it  is  accepted  according  to  that 
a  man  hath,  and  not  according  to  that  he  hath  not. 

In  dealing  with  men's  consciences,  for  the  taking  them  off 
from  sin,  I  know  nothing  of  so  direct  and  efficacious  an  influence, 
as  the  right  stating  of  those  general  rules  and  principles  of 
actions,  that  men  are  apt  to  guide  their  lives  and  consciences  by : 
for  if  these  be  true  and  withal  rightly  applied,  men  must  needs 
proceed  upon  firm  and  safe  grounds  ;  but  if  either  false  in  them- 
selves, or  not  right  in  their  particular  application,  the  whole  course 
that  men  are  thereby  engaged  in,  being  founded  in  sin  and  error, 
must  needs  lead  to,  and  at  length  end  in  death  and  confusion  ; 
there  being,  as  the  wise  man  tells  us,  "  a  way  that  may  seem 
right  in  a  man's  own  eyes,  when,  nevertheless,  the  end  of  that 
way  is  death." 

Now  as  amongst  these  principles  or  rules  of  action,  the  pre- 
tences of  the  Spirit,  and  of  tenderness  of  conscience,  and  the 
like,  have  been  the  late  grand  artifices  by  which  crafty  and  de- 
signing hypocrites  have  so  much  abused  the  world  ;  so  I  shall 
now  instance  in  another  of  no  less  note,  by  which  the  generality 
of  men  are  as  apt  to  abuse  themselves :  and  that  is  a  certain 
rule  or  sentence  got  almost  into  ever}7  man's  mouth,  '  that  God 
accepts  the  will  for  the  deed.'  A  principle,  as  usually  applied, 
of  less  malice,  I  confess ;  but,  considering  the  easiness,  and 
wuthal  the  fatality  of  the  delusion,  of  more  mischief  than  the 
other. 

And  this  I  shall  endeavour  to  search  into  and  lay  open  in  the 
following  discourse. 

The  words  hold  forth  a  general  rule  or  proposition  delivered 
upon  a  particular  occasion  :  which  was,  the  apostle's  exhorting 
the  Corinthians  to  a  holy  and  generous  emulation  of  the  charity 
of  the  Macedonians,  in  contributing  freely  to  the  relief  of  the 
poor  saints  at  Jerusalem  :  upon  this  great  encouragement,  that 
in  all  such  works  of  charity,  it  is  the  will  that  gives  worth  to  the 
oblation,  and,  as  to  God's  acceptance,  sets  the  poorest  giver  upon 
the  same  level  with  the  richest.  Nor  is  this  all  ;  but  so  perfectly 
does  the  value  of  all  charitable  acts  take  its  measure  and  pro- 

Vol.  1—20 


154 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  X. 


portion  from  the  will  and  from  the  fulness  of  the  heart,  rather 
than  that  of  tb*2  hand,  that  a  lesser  supply  may  be  oftentimes  a 
greater  charity ;  and  the  widow's  mite,  in  the  balance  of  the 
sanctuary,  outweigh  the  shekels,  and  perhaps  the  talents  of  the 
most  opulent  and  wealthy ;  the  all  and  utmost  of  the  one  being 
certainly  a  nobler  alms,  than  the  superfluities  of  the  other :  and 
all  this  upon  the  account  of  the  great  rule  here  set  down  in  the 
text :  That  in  all  transactions  between  God  and  man,  whereso- 
ever there  is  a  full  resolution,  drift,  and  purpose  of  will  to  please 
God,  there  what  a  man  can  do,  shall  by  virtue  thereof  be  ac- 
cepted ;  and  what  he  cannot  do,  shall  not  be  required.  From 
whence  these  too  propositions,  in  sense  and  design  much  the 
same,  do  naturally  result. 

I.  The  first  of  them  expressed  in  the  words ;  to  wit,  that  God 
accepts  the  will,  where  there  is  no  power  to  perform. 

II.  The  other  of  them  implied  ;  namely,  that  where  there  is 
a.  power  to  perform,  God  does  not  accept  the  will. 

Of  all  the  spiritual  tricks  and  ledgerdemain,  by  which  men  are 
apt  to  shift  off  their  duty,  and  to  impose  upon  their  own  souls, 
there  is  none  so  common,  and  of  so  fatal  an  import,  as  these  two ; 
the  plea  of  a  good  intention,  and  the  plea  of  a  good  will.  One 
or  both  of  them  being  used  by  men,  almost  at  every  turn,  to 
elude  the  precept,  to  put  God  off  with  something  instead  of 
obedience,  and  so,  in  effect,  to  outwit  him  whom  they  are  called 
to  obey.  They  are  certainly  two  of  the  most  effectual  instru- 
ments and  engines  in  the  devil's  hands,  to  wind  and  turn  the 
souls  of  men  by,  to  whatsoever  he  pleases.  For, 

1.  The  plea  of  a  good  intention  will  serve  to  sanctify  and 
authorize  the  very  worst  of  actions.  The  proof  of  which  is  but 
too  full  and  manifest,  from  that  lewd  and  scandalous  doctrine  of 
the  Jesuits  concerning  the  direction  of  the  intention,  and  like- 
wise from  the  whole  manage  of  the  late  accursed  rebellion.  In 
which  it  was  this  insolent  and  impudent  pretence,  that  em- 
boldened the  worst  of  men  to  wade  through  the  blood  of  the 
best  of  kings,  and  the  loyalest  of  subjects  ;  namely,  that  in  all 
that  risk  of  villany,  "  their  hearts,"  forsooth,  "  were  right  towards 
God  ;"  and  that  all  their  plunder  and  rapine  was  for  nothing  else, 
but  to  place  Christ  on  his  throne,  and  to  establish  amongst  us 
the  power  of  godliness,  and  the  purity  of  the  gospel,  by  a  fur- 
ther reformation  (as  the  cant  goes)  of  a  church,  which  had  but 
too  much  felt  the  meaning  of  that  word  before. 

But  such  persons  consider  not,  that  though  an  ill  intention  is 
certainly  sufficient  to  spoil  and  corrupt  an  act  in  itself  materially 
good  ;  yet  no  good  intention  whatsoever  can  rectify  or  infuse  a 
moral  goodness  into  an  act  otherwise  evil.  To  come  to  church, 
is  no  doubt  an  act  in  itself  materially  good  :  yet  he  who  does  it 
with  an  ill  intention,  comes  to  God's  house  upon  the  devil's 
errand  ;  and  the  whole  act  is  thereby  rendered  absolutely  evil 


GOOD  INTENTIONS  NO  EXCUSE  FOR  BAD  ACTIONS.  155 


and  detestable  before  God.  But,  on  the  other  side ;  if  it  were 
possible  for  a  man  to  intend  well,  while  he  does  ill ;  yet  no  such 
intention,  though  ever  so  good,  can  make  that  man  steal,  lie,  or 
murder  with  a  good  conscience,  or  convert  a  wicked  action  into  a 
good. 

For  these  things  are  against  the  nature  of  morality ;  in  which 
nothing  is  or  can  be  really  good  without  a  universal  concur- 
rence of  all  the  principles  and  ingredients  requisite  to  a  moral 
action ;  though  the  failure  of  any  one  of  them  will  imprint  a 
malignity  upon  that  act,  which,  in  spite  of  all  the  other  requisite 
ingredients,  shall  stamp  it  absolutely  evil,  and  corrupt  it  past  the 
cure  of  a  good  intention. 

And  thus,  as  I  have  shown,  that  the  plea  of  a  good  intention 
is  used  by  men  to  warrant  and  patronize  the  most  villanous  and 
wicked  actions  ;  so,  in  the  next  place  the  plea  of  a  good  will 
will  be  found  equally  efficacious  to  supersede,  and  take  off  the 
necessity  of  all  holy  and  good  actions.  For  still,  as  I  have  ob- 
served, the  great  art  of  the  devil,  and  the  principal  deceit  of  the 
heart,  is,  to  put  a  trick  upon  the  command,  and  to  keep  fair  with 
God  himself,  while  men  fall  foul  upon  his  laws.  For  both  law 
and  gospel  call  aloud  for  active  obedience,  and  such  a  piety  as 
takes  not  up  either  with  faint  notions,  or  idle  insignificant  inclina- 
tions, but  such  a  one  as  shows  itself  in  the  solid  instances  of 
practice  and  performance.  For,  "do  this  and  live,"  saith  the 
law,  Luke  x.  21 ;  and,  "if  ye  know  these  things  happy  are  ye 
if  ye  do  them,"  says  the  gospel,  John  xiii.  17  ;  and,  "not  every 
one  that  saith,  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ; 
but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven,"  Matt, 
vii.  21 ;  and,  "  let  no  man  deceive  you  ;  he  that  doeth  righteousness 
is  righteous,"  1  John  iii.  7,  with  innumerable  more  such  places. 
All  of  them  terrible  and  severe  injunctions  of  practice,  and  equally 
severe  obligations  to  it. 

But  then  in  comes  the  benign  latitude  of  the  doctrine  of  good 
will,  and  cuts  asunder  all  these  hard,  pinching  cords ;  and  tells 
you,  that  if  this  be  but  piously  and  well  inclined,  if  the  bent  of 
the  spirit,  as  some  call  it,  be  towards  God  and  goodness,  God 
accepts  of  this  above,  nay,  instead  of  all  external  works ;  those 
being  but  the  shell  or  husk,  this  the  kernel  or  quintessence, 
and  the  very  soul  of  duty.  But  for  all  this,  these  bents,  and 
propensities,  and  inclinations,  will  not  do  the  business :  the  bare 
bending  of  the  bow  will  not  hit  the  mark  without  shooting  the 
arrow ;  and  men  are  not  called  to  will,  but  to  work  out  their 
salvation. 

But  what  then  ?  Is  it  not  as  certain  from  the  text,  that  God 
sometimes  accepts  the  will,  as  it  is  from  those  forementioned 
scriptures,  that  God  commands  the  deed  ?  Yes,  no  doubt :  since 
it  is  impossible  for  the  Holy  Ghost  to  contradict  that  in  one 
place  of  scripture,  which  he  had  affirmed  in  another.    In  all  the 


156 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  X. 


foregoing  places,  doing  is  expressly  commanded,  and  no  happiness 
allowed  to  any  thing  short  of  it;  and  yet  here  God  is  said 
to  accept  of  the  will ;  and  can  both  these  stand  together  without 
manifest  contradiction  ?  That  which  enjoins  the  deed  is  certainly 
God's  law ;  and  it  is  also  as  certain,  that  the  scripture  that  allows 
of  the  will,  is  neither  the  abrogation,  nor  derogation,  nor  dispensa- 
tion, nor  relaxation  of  that  law. 

In  order  to  the  clearing  of  which,  I  shall  lay  down  these  two 
assertions. 

(1.)  That  every  law  of  God  commands  the  obedience  of  the 
whole  man.  (2.)  That  the  will  is  never  accepted  by  God,  but  as 
it  is  the  obedience  of  the  whole  man. 

So  that  the  allowance  or  acceptance  of  the  will,  mentioned  in 
the  text,  takes  off  nothing  from  the  obligation  of  those  laws,  in 
which  the  deed  is  so  plainly  and  positively  enjoined  ;  but  is  only 
an  interpretation  or  declaration  of  the  true  sense  of  those  laws, 
showing  the  equity  of  them  ;  which  is  as  really  essential  to  every 
law,  and  gives  it  its  obliging  force  as  much  as  the  justice  of  it ;  and 
indeed  is  not  another,  or  a  distinct  thing  from  the  justice  of  it,  any 
more  than  a  particular  case  is  from  a  universal  rule. 

But  you  will  say,  how  can  the  obedience  of  the  will  ever  be 
proved  to  be  the  obedience  of  the  whole  man  ? 

For  answer  to  which,  we  are  first  to  consider  every  man  as  a 
moral,  and  consequently  as  a  rational  agent ;  and  then  to  con- 
sider, what  is  the  office  and  influence  of  the  will  in  every  moral 
action.  Now  the  morality  of  an  action  is  founded  in  the  freedom 
of  that  principle,  by  virtue  of  which  it  is  in  the  agent's  power, 
having  all  things  ready  and  requisite  to  the  performance  of  an 
action,  either  to  perforin  or  not  to  perform  it.  And,  as  the  will 
is  endued  with  this  freedom,  so  is  it  also  endued  with  a  power  to 
command  all  the  other  faculties,  both  of  soul  and  body,  to  execute 
what  it  has  so  willed  or  decreed,  and  that  without  resistance  ;  so 
that  upon  the  last  dictate  of  the  will  for  the  doing  of  such  or 
such  a  thing,  all  the  other  faculties  proceed  immediately  to  act 
according  to  their  respective  offices.  By  which  it  is  manifest, 
that  in  point  of  action  the  will  is  virtually  the  whole  man ;  as 
containing  in  it  all  that,  which  by  virtue  of  his  other  faculties  he 
is  able  to  do  :  just  as  the  spring  of  a  watch  is  virtually  the  whole 
motion  of  the  watch ;  forasmuch  as  it  imparts  a  motion  to  all  the 
wheels  of  it. 

Thus  as  to  the  soul.  If  the  will  bids  the  understanding  think, 
study,  and  consider;  it  will  accordingly  apply  itself  to  thought, 
study,  and  consideration.  If  it  bids  the  affections  love,  rejoice, 
or  be  angry;  an  act  of  love,  joy,  or  anger  will  follow.  And  then 
for  the  body ;  if  the  will  bids  the  leg  go,  it  goes ;  if  it  bids  the 
hand  do  this,  it  does  it.  So  that  a  man  is  a  moral  agent,  only  as  he 
is  endued  with,  and  acts  by  a  free  and  commanding  principle 
of  will. 


GOOD  INTENTIONS  NO  EXCUSE  FOR  BAD  ACTIONS.  157 


And  therefore,  when  God  says,  "  My  son,  give  me  thy  heart," 
which  there  signifies  the  will,  it  is  as  much  as  if  he  had  com- 
manded the  service  of  the  whole  man  ;  for  whatsoever  the  will 
commands  the  whole  man  must  do  :  the  empire  or  dominion  of 
the  will  over  all  the  faculties  of  soul  and  body  (as  to  most  of  the 
operations  of  each  of  them)  being  absolutely  overruling  and 
despotical.  From  whence  it  follows,  that  when  the  will  has 
exerted  an  act  of  command  upon  any  faculty  of  the  soul,  or 
member  of  the  body,  it  has,  by  so  doing,  done  all  that  the  whole 
man,  as  a  moral  agent,  can  do  for  the  actual  exercise  or  employ- 
ment of  such  a  faculty  or  member.  And  if  so,  then  what  is 
not  done  in  such  a  case,  is  certainly  not  in  man's  power  to  do ; 
and  consequently,  is  no  part  of  the  obedience  required  of  him  ; 
no  man  being  commanded  or  obliged  to  obey  beyond  his  power. 
And  therefore  the  obedience  of  the  will  to  God's  commands  is 
the  obedience  of  the  whole  man  (forasmuch  as  it  includes  and 
infers  it) ;  which  was  the  assertion  that  we  undertook  to  prove. 

But  you  will  say,  if  the  prerogative  of  the  will  be  such,  that 
where  it  commands  the  hand  to  give  an  alms,  the  leg  to  kneel,  or 
to  go  to  church,  or  the  tongue  to  utter  a  prayer,  all  these  things 
will  infallibly  be  done  ;  suppose  we  now,  a  man  be  bound  hand 
and  foot  by  some  outward  violence,  or  be  laid  up  with  the  gout, 
or  disabled  for  any  of  these  functions  by  a  palsy  ;  can  the  will, 
by  its  command,  make  a  man  in  such  a  condition  utter  a  prayer, 
or  kneel,  or  go  to  church  ?  No,  it  is  manifest  it  cannot :  but 
then  you  are  to  know  also,  that  neither  is  vocal  prayer,  or  bodily 
kneeling,  or  going  to  church  in  such  a  case,  any  part  of  the  obe- 
dience required  of  such  a  person  :  but  that  act  of  his  will  hitherto 
spoken  of,  that  would  have  put  his  body  upon  all  these  actions, 
had  there  been  no  impediment,  is  that  man's  whole  obedience ; 
and  for  that  very  cause  that  it  is  so,  and  for  no  other,  it  stands 
here  accepted  by  God. 

From  all  which  discourse  this  must  naturally  and  directly  be 
inferred,  as  a  certain  truth,  and  the  chief  foundation  of  all  that 
can  be  said  upon  this  subject :  namely,  that  whosoever  wills  the 
doing  of  a  thing,  if  the  doing  of  it  be  in  his  power,  he  will  cer- 
tainly do  it ;  and  whosoever  does  not  do  that  thing  which  he  has 
in  his  power  to  do,  does  not  really  and  properly  will  it.  For 
though  the  act  of  the  will  commanding,  and  the  act  of  any  other 
faculty  of  the  soul  or  body  executing  that  which  is  so  com- 
manded, be  physically,  and  in  the  precise  nature  of  things,  dis- 
tinct and  several  ;  yet  morally,  as  they  proceed  in  subordination, 
from  one  entire,  free,  moral  agent,  both  in  divinity  and  morality, 
they  pass  but  for  one  and  the  same  action. 

Now,  that  from  the  foregoing  particulars  we  may  come  to  un- 
derstand, how  far  this  rule  of  God's  accepting  the  will  for  the 
deed  holds  good  in  the  sense  of  the  apostle,  we  must  consider  it 
in  these  three  things. 


158 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  X. 


1.  The  original  ground  and  reason  of  it.  2.  The  just  measure 
and  bounds  of  it :  and,  3.  The  abuse  or  misapplication  of  it. 

And  first  for  the  original  ground  and  reason  of  this  rule  :  it  is 
founded  upon  that  great,  self-evident,  and  eternal  truth,  that 
the  just,  the  wise,  and  good  God  neither  does  nor  can  require  of 
any  man  any  thing  that  is  impossible,  or  naturally  beyond  his 
power  to  do :  and  therefore,  in  the  second  place,  the  measure  of 
this  rule,  by  which  the  just  extent  and  bounds  of  it  are  to  be 
determined,  must  be  that  power  or  ability  that  man  naturally 
has,  to  do  or  perform  the  things  willed  by  him.  So  that  where- 
soever such  a  power  is  founded,  there  this  rule  of  God's  accepting 
the  will  has  no  place  ;  and  wheresoever  such  a  power  is  not  found, 
there  this  rule  presently  becomes  in  force.  And  accordingly,  in 
the  third  and  last  place,  the  abuse  or  misapplication  of  this  rule 
will  consist  of  these  two  things  : 

1.  That  men  do  very  often  take  that  to  be  an  act  of  the  will, 
that  really  and  truly  is  not  so.  2.  That  they  reckon  many  things 
impossible  that  indeed  are  not  impossible. 

And  first,  to  begin  with  men's  mistakes  about  the  will,  and  the 
acts  of  it ;  I  shall  note  these  three,  by  which  men  are  extremely 
apt  to  impose  upon  themselves. 

(1.)  As,  first,  the  bare  approbation  of  the  worth  and  goodness 
of  a  thing  is  not  properly  the  willing  of  that  thing  ;  and  yet  men 
do  very  commonly  account  it  so.  But  this  is  properly  an  act  of 
the  understanding  or  judgment ;  a  faculty  wholly  distinct  from  the 
will  and  which  makes  a  principal  part  of  that,  which  in  divinity  we 
call  natural  conscience ;  and  in  the  strength  of  which  a  man  may 
approve  of  things  good  and  excellent,  without  ever  willing  or 
intending  the  practice  of  them.  And  accordingly,  the  apostle, 
Rom.  ii.  18,  gives  us  an  account  of  some  who  approved  of  things 
excellent,  and  yet  practised,  and  consequently  willed,  things  clean 
contrary,  since  no  man  can  commit  a  sin,  but  he  must  will  it  first. 
Whosoever  observes  and  looks  into  the  workings  of  his  own 
heart,  will  find  that  noted  sentence,  Video  meliora  proboque,  de- 
teriora  sequor,  too  frequently  and  fatally  verified  upon  himself. 
The  seventh  of  the  Romans,  which  has  been  made  the  unhappy 
scene  of  so  much  controversy  about  these  matters,  has  several 
passages  to  this  purpose.  In  a  word,  to  judge  what  ought  to  be 
done  is  one  thing,  and  to  will  the  doing  of  it,  is  quite  another. 

No  doubt,  virtue  is  a  beautiful  and  a  glorious  thing  in  the  eyes 
of  the  most  vicious  person  breathing ;  and  all  that  he  does  or  can 
hate  in  it,  is  the  difficulty  of  its  practice  :  for  it  is  practice  alone 
that  divides  the  world  into  virtuous  and  vicious :  but  otherwise, 
as  to  the  theory  and  speculation  of  virtue  and  vice,  honest  and 
dishonest,  the  generality  of  mankind  are  much  the  same  ;  for 
men  do  not  approve  of  virtue  by  choice  and  free  election,  but 
it  is  an  homage  which  nature  commands  all  understandings  to 
pay  to  it,  by  necessary  determination :  and  yet,  after  all,  it  is  but 


GOOD  INTENTIONS  NO  EXCUSE  FOR  BAD  ACTIONS.  159 

a  faint,  unactive  thing ;  for,  in  defiance  of  the  judgment,  the  will 
may  still  remain  as  perverse,  and  as  much  a  stranger  to  virtue,  as 
it  was  before.  In  fine,  there  is  as  much  difference  between  the 
approbation  of  the  judgment,  and  the  actual  volitions  of  the  will, 
with  relation  to  the  same  object,  as  there  is  between  a  man's 
viewing  a  desirable  thing  with  his  eye,  and  his  reaching  after  it 
with  his  hand. 

(2.)  The  wishing  of  a  thing  is  not  properly  the  willing  of  it, 
though  too  often  mistaken  by  men  for  such ;  but  it  is  that  which 
is  called  by  the  schools  an  imperfect  velleity,  and  imports  no 
more  than  an  idle,  unoperative  complacency  in,  and  desire  of  the 
end,  without  any  consideration  of,  nay,  for  the  most  part,  with  a 
direct  abhorrence  of  the  means ;  of  which  nature  I  account  the 
wish  of  Balaam,  in  Numb,  xxiii.  10,  "  Let  me  die  the  death  of  the 
righteous,  and  let  my  last  end  be  like  his." 

The  thing  itself  appeared  desirable  to  him,  and  accordingly  he 
could  not  but  like  and  desire  it ;  but  then  it  was  after  a  very 
irrational  absurd  way,  and  contrary  to  all  the  methods  and  princi- 
ples of  a  rational  agent;  which  never  wills  a  thing  really  and 
properly,  but  it  applies  to  the  means  by  which  it  is  to  be 
acquired.  But  at  that  very  time  that  Balaam  desired  to  "  die 
the  death  of  the  righteous,"  he  was  actually  following  "  the  wages 
of  unrighteousness,"  and  so  thereby  engaged  in  a  course  quite 
contrary  to  what  he  desired  ;  and  consequently,  such  as  could  not 
possibly  bring  him  to  such  an  end.  Much  like  the  sot  that  cried, 
Utinam  hoc  esset  laborare,  while  he  lay  lazing  and  lolling  upon  his 
couch. 

But  every  true  act  of  volition  imports  a  respect  to  the  end,  by 
and  through  the  means ;  and  wills  a  thing  only  in  that  way,  in 
which  it  is  to  be  compassed  or  effected ;  which  is  the  foundation 
of  that  most  true  aphorism,  That  he  who  wills  the  end,  will  also 
the  means.  The  truth  of  which  is  founded  in  such  a  necessary 
connexion  of  the  terms,  that  I  look  upon  the  proposition,  not  only 
as  true,  but  convertible ;  and  that,  as  a  man  cannot  truly  and 
properly  will  the  end,  but  he  must  also  will  the  means ;  so  neither 
can  he  will  the  means,  but  he  must  virtually,  and  by  interpreta- 
tion at  least,  will  the  end.  Which  is  so  true,  that  in  the  account 
of  the  divine  law,  a  man  is  reckoned  to  will  even  those  things 
that  naturally  are  not  the  objects  of  desire;  such  as  death  itself, 
Ezek.  xviii.  31,  only  because  he  wills  those  ways  and  courses  that 
naturally  tend  to  and  end  in  it.  And  even  our  own  common 
law  looks  upon  a  man's  raising  arms  against,  or  imprisoning  his 
prince,  as  an  imagining  or  compassing  of  his  death :  forasmuch  as 
these  actions  are  the  means  directly  leading  to  it,  and,  for  the  most 
part,  actually  concluding  in  it ;  and  consequently  that  the  willing 
of  the  one  is  the  willing  of  the  other  also. 

To  will  a  thing  therefore,  is  certainly  much  another  thing  from 
what  the  generality  of  men,  especially  in  their  spiritual  concerns, 


♦ 


160  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  X. 

take  it  to  be.  I  say  in  their  spiritual  concerns  ;  for  in  their 
temporal,  it  is  manifest,  that  they  think  and  judge  much  other- 
wise, and  in  the  things  of  this  world,  no  man  is  allowed  or 
believed  to  will  any  thing  heartily,  which  he  does  not  endeavour 
after  proportionably.  A  wish  is  properly  a  man  of  desire,  sitting 
or  lying  still ;  but  an  act  of  the  will,  is  a  man  of  business, 
vigorously  going  about  his  work :  and  certainly  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  difference  between  a  man's  stretching  out  his  arms  to 
work,  and  his  stretching  them  out  only  to  yawn. 

(3.)  And  lastly,  a  mere  inclination  to  a  thing  is  not  properly  a 
willing  of  that  thing ;  and  yet  in  matters  of  duty,  no  doubt,  men 
frequently  reckon  it  for  such.  For  otherwise,  why  should  they 
so  often  plead  and  rest  in  the  goodness  of  their  hearts,  and  the 
honest  and  well  inclined  dispositions  of  their  minds,  when  they  are 
justly  charged  with  an  actual  non-performance  of  what  the  law 
requires  of  them? 

But  that  an  inclination  to  a  thing,  is  not  a  willing  of  that  thing, 
is  irrefragably  proved  by  this  one  argument,  that  a  man  may  act 
virtuously  against  his  inclination,  but  not  against  his  will.  He 
may  be  inclined  to  one  thing,  and  yet  will  another  ;  and  therefore 
inclination  and  will  are  not  the  same. 

For  a  man  may  be  naturally  inclined  to  pride,  lust,  anger,  and 
strongly  inclined  so  too,  forasmuch  as  these  inclinations  are 
founded  in  a  peculiar  crasis  and  constitution  of  the  blood  and 
spirits ;  and  yet  by  a  steady  frequent  repetition  of  the  contrary 
acts  of  humility,  chastity,  and  meekness,  carried  thereto  by  his 
will,  a  principle  not  to  be  controlled  by  the  blood  or  spirits,  he 
may  at  length  plant  in  his  soul  all  those  contrary  habits  of  virtue  ; 
and  therefore  it  is  certain,  that  while  inclination  bends  the  soul 
one  way,  a  well  disposed  and  resolved  will  may  effectually  draw 
it  another.  A  sufficient  demonstration,  doubtless,  that  they  are 
two  very  different  things ;  for  where  there  may  be  a  contrariety, 
there  is  certainly  a  diversity.  A  good  inclination  is  but  the  first 
rude  draught  of  virtue;  but  the  finishing  strokes  are  from  the 
will ;  which,  if  well  disposed,  will  by  degrees  perfect ;  if  ill 
disposed,  will,  by  the  superinduction  of  ill  habits,  quickly  de- 
face it. 

God  never  accepts  a  good  inclination  instead  of  a  good  action, 
where  that  action  may  be  done  ;  nay,  so  much  the  contrary,  that 
if  a  good  inclination  be  not  seconded  by  a  good  action,  the  want 
x>f  that  action  is  thereby  made  so  much  the  more  criminal  and 
inexcusable. 

A  man  may  be  naturally  well  and  virtuously  inclined,  and  yet 
never  do  one  good  or  virtuous  action  all  his  life.  A  bowl  may 
lie  still  for  all  its  bias  ;  but  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  will 
virtue  and  virtuous  actions  heartily,  but  he  must  in  the  same  de- 
gree offer  at  the  practice  of  them ;  forasmuch  as  the  dictates  of 
the  will  are  (as  we  have  shown)  despotical,  and  command  the 


GOOD  INTENTIONS  NO  EXCUSE  FOR  BAD  ACTIONS.  161 

whole  man  :  it  being  a  contradiction  in  morality,  for  the  will  to 
go  one  way,  and  the  man  another. 

And  thus  as  to  the  first  abuse  or  misapplication  of  the  great 
rule  mentioned  in  the  text,  about  God's  accepting  the  will,  I  have 
shown  three  notable  mistakes,  which  men  are  apt  to  entertain 
concerning  the  will ;  and  proved,  that  neither  a  bare  approbation 
of,  nor  a  mere  wishing,  or  unactive  complacency  in,  nor  lastly,  a 
natural  inclination  to  things  virtuous  and  good,  can  pass  before 
God  for  a  man's  willing  of  such  things  ;  and  consequently,  if  men 
upon  this  account  will  needs  take  up,  and  acquiesce  in  an  airy, 
ungrounded  persuasion,  that  they  will  those  things  which  really 
they  do  not  will,  they  fall  thereby  into  a  gross  and  fatal  delusion  : 
a  delusion,  that  must  and  will  shut  the  door  of  salvation  against 
them.  They  catch  at  heaven,  but  embrace  a  cloud  ;  they  mock 
God,  who  will  not  be  mocked  ;  and  deceive  their  own  souls, 
which,  God  knows,  may  too  easily  be  both  deceived,  and  de- 
stroyed too. 

2.  Come  we  now  in  the  next  place  to  consider  the  other  way, 
by  which  men  are  prone  to  abuse  and  pervert  this  important  rule 
of  God's  accounting  the  will  for  the  deed  ;  and  that  is,  by  reck- 
oning many  things  impossible,  which  in  truth  are  not  impossible. 

And  this  I  shall  make  appear  by  showing  some  of  the  principal 
instances  of  duty,  for  the  performance  of  which,  men  commonly 
plead  want  of  power  ;  and  thereupon  persuade  themselves,  that 
God  and  the  law  rest  satisfied  with  their  will. 

Now  these  instances  are  four : 

(1.)  In  duties  of  very  great  and  hard  labour.  Labour  is  con- 
fessedly a  great  part  of  the  curse  ;  and  therefore,  no  wTonder,  if 
men  fly  from  it :  which  they  do  with  so  great  an  aversion,  that 
few  men  knowT  their  own  strength  for  want  of  trying  it ;  and, 
upon  that  account,  think  themselves  really  unable  to  do  many 
things,  which  experience  would  convince  them,  they  have  more 
ablity  to  effect,  than  they  have  will  to  attempt. 

It  is  idleness  that  creates  impossibilities ;  and  where  men  care 
not  to  do  a  thing,  they  shelter  themselves  under  a  persuasion 
that  it  cannot  be  done.  The  shortest  and  the  surest  way  to  prove 
a  work  possible,  is  strenuously  to  set  about  it ;  and  no  wonder  if 
that  proves  it  possible,  that,  for  the  most  part,  makes  it  so. 

"  Dig,"  says  the  unjust  steward,  "I  cannot."  But  why?  Did 
either  his  legs  or  his  arms  fail  him  ?  No,  but  day-labour  was  but 
a  hard  and  a  dry  kind  of  livelihood  to  a  man  that  could  get 
an  estate  with  two  or  three  strokes  of  his  pen ;  and  find  so  great 
a  treasure  as  he  did  without  digging  for  it. 

But  such  excuses  will  not  pass  muster  with  God,  who  will 
allow-  no  man's  humour  or  idleness  to  be  the  measure  of  possible 
or  impossible.  And  to  manifest  the  wretched  hypocrisy  of  such 
pretences,  those  very  things,  which  upon  the  bare  obligation  of 
duty  are  declined  by  men  as  impossible,  presently  become  not  only 

Vol.  I. — 21  o2 


162 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  X. 


possible,  but  readily  practicable  too,  in  a  case  of  extreme  necessity. 
As  no  doubt  that  forementioned  instance  of  fraud  and  laziness, 
the  unjust  steward,  who  pleaded  that  he  could  neither  dig  nor 
beg,  would  quickly  have  been  brought  both  to  dig  and  to  beg 
too,  rather  than  starve.  And  if  so,  what  reason  could  such  a  one 
produce  before  God,  why  he  could  not  submit  to  the  same  hard- 
ships, rather  than  cheat  and  lie  ?  The  former  being  but  destruc- 
tive of  the  body,  this  latter  of  the  soul :  and  certainly  the  highest 
and  dearest  concerns  of  a  temporal  life  are  infinitely  less  valuable 
than  those  of  an  eternal  ;  and  consequently  ought,  without  any 
demur  at  all,  to  be  sacrificed  to  them,  whensoever  they  come  in 
competition  with  them.  He  who  can  digest  any  labour  rather 
than  die,  must  refuse  no  labour  rather  than  sin. 

(2.)  The  second  instance  shall  be  in  duties  of  great  and 
apparent  danger.  Danger,  as  the  world  goes,  generally  absolves 
from  duty ;  this  being  a  case  in  which  most  men,  according  to  a 
very  ill  sense,  will  needs  be  a  law  to  themselves  ;  and  where  it  is 
not  safe  for  them  to  be  religious,  their  religion  shall  be  to  be  safe. 
But  Christianity  teaches  us  a  very  different  lesson  ;  for  if  fear  of 
suffering  could  take  off*  the  necessity  of  obeying,  the  doctrine  of 
the  cross  would  certainly  be  a  very  idle  and  a  senseless  thing ;  and 
Christ  would  never  have  prayed,  "  Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let 
this  cup  pass  from  me,"  had  the  bitterness  of  that  draught  made 
it  impossible  to  be  drunk  of.  If  death  and  danger  are  things  that 
really  cannot  be  endured,  no  man  could  ever  be  obliged  to  suffer 
for  his  conscience,  or  to  die  for  his  religion  ,  it  being  altogether 
as  absurd  to  imagine  a  man  obliged  to  suffer,  as  to  do  impossi- 
bilities. 

But  those  primitive  heroes  of  the  Christian  church  could  not 
so  easily  blow  off  the  doctrine  of  passive  obedience,  as  to  make 
the  fear  of  being  passive  a  discharge  from  being  obedient.  No, 
they  found  martyrdom  not  only  possible,  but  in  many  cases  a 
duty  also  ;  a  duty  dressed  up  indeed  with  all  that  was  terrible 
and  afflictive  to  human  nature,  yet  not  at  all  the  less  a  duty  for 
being  so.  And  such  a  height  of  Christianity  possessed  those 
noble  souls,  that  every  martyr  could  keep  one  eye  steadily  fixed 
upon  his  duty,  and  look  death  and  danger  out  of  countenance 
with  the  other  ;  nor  did  they  flinch  from  duty  for  fear  of  martyr- 
dom, when  one  of  the  most  quickening  motives  to  duty  was  their 
desire  of  it. 

But  to  prove  the  possibility  of  a  thing,  there  is  no  argument 
like  to  that  which  looks  backwards  ;  for  what  has  been  done  or 
suffered,  may  certainly  be  done  or  suffered  again.  And  to  prove 
that  men  may  be  martyrs,  there  needs  no  other  demonstration 
than  to  show  that  many  have  been  so.  Besides  that  the  grace 
of  God  has  not  so  far  abandoned  the  Christian  world,  but  that 
those  high  primitive  instances  of  passive  fortitude  in  the  case  of 
duty  and  danger  rivalling  one  another,  have  been  exemplified, 


GOOD  INTENTIONS  NO  EXCUSE  FOR  BAD  ACTIONS.  163 

and,  as  it  were,  revived  by  several  glorious  copies  of  them  in  the 
succeeding  ages  of  the  church. 

And,  thanks  be  to  God,  we  need  not  look  very  far  backward 
for  some  of  them  even  amongst  ourselves.  For  when  a  violent, 
victorious  faction  and  rebellion  had  overrun  all,  and  made  loyalty 
to  the  king  and  conformity  to  the  church  crimes  unpardonable, 
and  of  a  guilt  not  to  be  expiated,  but  at  the  price  of  life  and 
estate ;  when  men  were  put  to  swear  away  all  interest  in  the  next 
world,  to  secure  a  very  poor  one  in  this ;  for  they  had  then  oaths 
to  murder  souls,  as  well  as  sword  and  pistol  for  the  body ;  nay, 
when  the  persecution  ran  so  high,  that  that  execrable  monster 
Cromwell  made  and  published  that  barbarous,  heathenish,  or 
rather  inhuman  edict  against  the  poor  suffering  episcopal  clergy, 
"  That  they  should  neither  preach  nor  pray  in  public,  nor  baptize, 
nor  marry,  nor  bury,  nor  teach  school,  no,  nor  so  much  as  live  in 
any  gentleman's  house,"  who  in  mere  charity  and  compassion 
might  be  inclined  to  take  them  in  from  perishing  in  the  streets ; 
that  is,  in  other  words,  that  they  must  starve  and  die  ex  officio, 
and  being  turned  out  of  their  churches,  take  possession  only  of 
the  church-yard,  as  so  many  victims  to  the  remorseless  rage  of  a 
foul,  ill  bred  tyrant  professing  piety  without  so  much  as  common 
humanity:  I  say,  when  rage  and  persecution,  cruelty,  and  Crom- 
wellism  were  at  that  diabolical  pitch,  tyrannizing  over  every 
thing  that  looked  like  loyalty,  conscience,  and  conformity ;  so  that 
he,  who  took  not  their  engagement,  could  not  take  any  thing 
else,  though  it  were  given  him  ;  being  thereby  debarred  from  the 
very  common  benefit  of  the  law,  in  suing  for  or  recovering  of  his 
right  in  any  of  their  courts  of  justice,  all  of  them  still  following 
the  motion  of  the  high  one  ;  yet  even  then,  and  under  that  black 
and  dismal  state  of  things,  there  were  many  thousands  who  never 
bowed  the  knee  to  Baal-Cromwell,  Baal-covenant,  or  Baal- 
engagement  ;  but  with  a  steady,  fixed,  unshaken  resolution,  and 
in  a  glorious  imitation  of  those  heroic  Christians  in  the  tenth  and 
eleventh  chapters  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  "  endured  a 
great  fight  of  afflictions,  were  made  a  gazing-stock  by  reproaches, 
took  joyfully  the  spoiling  of  their  goods,  had  trial  of  cruel  mock- 
ings ;  moreover  of  bonds  and  imprisonments ;  sometimes  were 
tempted,  sometimes  were  slain  with  the  sword  ;  wandered  about 
in  hunger  and  nakedness,  being  destitute,  afflicted,  tormented." 
All  which  sufferings  surely  ought  to  entitle  them  to  that  con- 
cluding character  in  the  next  words,  "  of  whom  the  world  was 
not  worthy."  And  I  wish  I  could  say  of  England,  that  it  were 
worthy  of  those  men  now.  For  I  look  upon  the  old  church  of 
England  royalists  (which  I  take  to  be  only  another  name  for  a 
man  who  prefers  his  conscience  before  his  interest)  to  be  the  best 
Christians,  and  the  most  meritorious  subjects  in  the  world ;  as 
having  passed  all  those  terrible  tests  and  trials,  which  conquer- 
ing, domineering  malice  could  put  them  to,  and  carried  their 


164 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  X. 


credit  and  their  conscience  clear  and  triumphant  through  and 
above  them  all,  constantly  firm  and  immovable  by  all  that  they  felt 
either  from  their  professed  enemies  or  their  false  friends.  And  what 
these  men  did  and  suffered,  others  might  have  done  and  suffered 
too. 

But  they,  good  men,  had  another  and  more  artificial  sort  of 
conscience,  and  a  way  to  interpret  off  a  command,  where  they 
found  it  dangerous  or  unprofitable  to  do  it.  6  God  knows  my 
heart,'  says  one,  'I  love  the  king  cordially:'  '  and  I  wish  well 
to  the  church,'  says  another  ;  £  but  you  see  the  state  of  things  is 
altered,  and  we  cannot  do  what  we  would  do.  Our  will  is  good, 
and  the  king  gracious ;  and  we  hope  he  will  accept  of  this,  and 
dispense  with  the  rest.'  A  goodly  present,  doubtless,  as  they 
meant  it ;  and  such  as  they  might  freely  give,  and  yet  part  with 
nothing ;  and  the  king,  on  the  other  hand,  receive  and  gain  just 
as  much. 

But  now,  had  the  whole  nation  mocked  God  and  their  king  at 
this  shuffling,  hypocritical  rate,  what  an  odious,  infamous  people 
must  that  rebellion  have  represented  the  English  to  all  posterity  ? 
Where  had  been  the  honour  of  the  reformed  religion,  that  could 
not  afford  a  man  Christian  enough  to  suffer  for  his  God  and  his 
prince  ?  But  the  old  royalists  did  both,  and  thereby  demonstrated 
to  the  world,  that  no  danger  could  make  duty  impossible. 

And,  upon  my  conscience,  if  we  may  assign  any  other  reason  or 
motive  of  the  late  mercies  of  God  to  these  poor  kingdoms, 
besides  his  own  proneness  to  showT  mercy,  it  was  for  the  sake  of 
the  old  suffering  cavaliers,  and  for  the  sake  of  none  else  what- 
soever, that  God  delivered  us  from  the  late  two  accursed  con- 
spiracies. For  they  were  the  brats  and  offspring  of  two  contrary 
factions,  both  of  them  equally  mortal  and  inveterate  enemies  of 
our  church ;  which  they  have  been  and  still  are  perpetually 
pecking  and  striking  at  with  the  same  malice,  though  with  different 
methods. 

In  a  word ;  the  old,  tried  church  of  England  royalists  were 
the  men,  who,  in  the  darkest  and  foulest  day  of  persecution  that 
ever  befell  England,  never  pleaded  the  will  in  excuse  of  the  deed  ; 
but  proved  the  integrity  and  loyalty  of  their  wills,  both  by  their 
deeds  and  their  sufferings  too. 

But,  on  the  contrary,  when  duty  and  danger  stand  confronting 
one  another,  and  when  the  law  of  God  says,  Obey  and  assist 
your  king,  and  the  faction  says,  Do  if  you  dare;  for  men,  in 
such  a  case,  to  think  to  divide  themselves,  and  to  pretend  that 
their  will  obeys  that  law,  while  all  besides  their  will  obeys  and 
serves  the  faction  ;  what  is  this  but  a  gross  fulsome  juggling  with 
their  duty,  and  a  kind  of  trimming  it  between  God  and  the 
devil  ? 

These  things  I  thought  fit  to  remark  to  you,  not  out  of  any 
intemperate  humour  of  reflecting  upon  the  late  times  of  confu- 


GOOD  INTENTIONS  NO  EXCUSE  FOR  BAD  ACTIONS.  165 

sion,  as  the  guilt  or  spite  of  some  may  suggest;  but  because  I 
am  satisfied  in  my  heart  and  conscience,  that  it  is  vastly  the  con- 
cern of  his  majesty,  and  of  the  peace  of  his  government,  both  in 
church  and  state,  that  the  youth  of  the  nation,  of  which  such 
auditories  as  this  chiefly  consist,  should  be  principled  and 
possessed  with  a  full,  fixed,  and  thorough  persuasion  of  the  just- 
ness and  goodness  of  the  blessed  old  king's  cause  ;  and  of  the 
excellent  piety  and  Christianity  of  those  principles,  upon  which 
the  loyal  part  of  the  nation  adhered  to  him,  and  that  against  the 
most  horrid  and  inexcusable  rebellion  that  was  ever  set  on  foot, 
and  acted  upon  the  stage  of  the  world  ;  of  all  which  whosoever  is 
not  persuaded,  is  a  rebel  in  his  heart,  and  deserves  not  the  protec- 
tion which  he  enjoys. 

And  the  rather  do  I  think  such  remarks  as  these  necessary  of 
iate  years,  because  of  the  vile  arts  and  restless  endeavours  used 
by  some  sly  and  venomous  factors  for  the  old  republican  cause, 
to  poison  and  debauch  men  from  their  allegiance ;  sometimes 
creeping  into  houses,  and  sometimes  creeping  into  studies  ;  but 
in  both  equally  pimping  for  the  faction,  and  stealing  away  as  many 
hearts  from  the  son,  as  they  had  formerly  employed  hands  against 
the  father.  And  this  with  such  success,  that  it  cannot  but 
be  matter  of  very  sad  and  melancholy  reflection  to  all  sober  and 
loyal  minds,  to  consider,  that  several  who  had  stood  it  out,  and 
persevered  firm  and  unalterable  royalists  in  the  late  storm,  have 
since,  I  know  not  by  what  unhappy  fate,  turned  trimmers  in  the 
calm. 

3.  The  third  instance,  in  which  men  use  to  plead  the  will  instead 
of  the  deed,  shall  be  in  duties  of  cost  and  expense. 

Let  a  business  of  expensive  charity  be  proposed  ;  and  then,  as  I 
showed  before,  that  in  matters  of  labour  the  lazy  person  could 
not  find  any  hands  wherewith  to  work ;  so  neither,  in  this  case, 
can  the  religious  miser  find  any  hands  wherewith  to  give.  It  is 
wonderful  to  consider,  how  a  command  or  call  to  be  liberal,  either 
upon  a  civil  or  religious  account,  all  of  a  sudden  impoverishes  the 
rich,  breaks  the  merchant,  shuts  up  every  private  man's  ex- 
chequer, and  makes  those  men  in  a  minute  have  nothing  at  all  to 
give,  who,  at  the  very  same  instant,  want  nothing  to  spend.  So 
that,  instead  of  relieving  the  poor,  such  a  command  strangely 
increases  their  number,  and  transforms  rich  men  into  beggars 
presently.  For,  let  the  danger  of  their  prince  and  country 
knock  at  their  purses,  and  call  upon  them  to  contribute  against  a 
public  enemy  or  calamity ;  then  immediately  they  have  nothing, 
and  their  riches,  upon  such  occasions,  (as  Solomon  expresses  it), 
never  fail  to  "  make  themselves  wings,  and  to  fly  away." 

Thus,  at  the  siege  of  Constantinople,  then  the  wealthiest  city  in 
the  world,  the  citizens  had  nothing  to  give  their  emperor  for 
the  defence  of  the  place,  though  he  begged  a  supply  of  them 
with  tears ;  but,  when  by  that  means  the  Turks  took  ana  sacked 


166 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  X. 


it,  then  those  who  before  had  nothing  to  give,  had  more  than 
enough  to  lose.  And  in  like  manner,  those  who  would  not  sup- 
port the  necessities  of  the  old  blessed  king  against  his  villanous 
enemies,  found  that  plunder  could  take,  where  disloyalty  would 
not  give ;  and  rapine  open  those  chests  that  avarice  had  shut. 

But  to  descend  to  matters  of  daily  and  common  occurrence  ; 
what  is  more  usual  in  conversation,  than  for  men  to  express  their 
unwillingness  to  do  a  thing,  by  saying  they  cannot  do  it ;  and  for 
a  covetous  man,  being  asked  a  little  money  in  charity,  to  answer, 
that  he  has  none  ?  Which  as  it  is,  if  true,  a  sufficient  answer 
to  God  and  man ;  so,  if  false,  it  is  intolerable  hypocrisy  towards 
both. 

But  do  men  in  good  earnest  think  that  God  will  be  put  off  so  ? 
or  can  they  imagine  that  the  law  of  God  will  be  baffled  with  a 
lie  clothed  in  a  scoff? 

For  such  pretences  are  no  better,  as  appears  from  that  notable 
account  given  us  by  the  apostle  of  this  windy,  insignificant 
charity  of  the  will,  and  of  the  worthlessness  of  it,  not  enlivened 
by  deeds,  James  ii.  16,  "  If  a  brother  or  sister  be  naked,  and  des- 
titute of  daily  food,  and  one  of  you  say  unto  them,  Depart  in 
peace,  be  ye  warmed  and  filled  ;  notwithstanding  ye  give  them 
not  those  things  that  are  needful  to  the  body ;  what  doth  it 
profit  ?"  Profit,  does  he  say  ?  Why,  it  profits  just  as  much  as  fair 
words  command  the  market,  as  good  wishes  buy  food  and  raiment, 
and  pass  for  current  payment  in  the  shops.  Come  to  an  old,  rich, 
professing  vulpony,  and  tell  him  that  there  is  a  church  to  be 
built,  beautified,  or  endowed  in  such  a  place,  and  that  he  cannot 
lay  out  his  money  more  to  God's  honour,  the  public  good,  and 
the  comfort  of  his  own  conscience,  than  to  bestow  it  liberally 
upon  such  an  occasion  ;  and  in  answer  to  this,  it  is  ten  to  one 
but  you  shall  be  told,  4  how  much  God  is  for  the  inward,  spiritual 
worship  of  the  heart :  and  that  the  Almighty  neither  clwells  nor 
delights  in  temples  made  with  hands;  but  hears  and  accepts  the 
prayers  of  his  people  in  dens  and  caves,  barns  and  stables ;  and  in 
the  homeliest  and  meanest  cottages,  as  well  as  in  the  stateliest  and 
most  magnificent  churches.'  Thus,  I  say,  you  are  like  to  be 
answered.  In  reply  to  which,  I  would  have  all  such  sly,  sancti- 
fied cheats  (who  are  so  often  harping  upon  this  string)  know,  once 
for  all,  that  that  God,  who  accepts  the  prayers  of  his  people  in 
dens  and  caves,  barns,  and  stables,  when,  by  his  afflicting  Provi- 
dence, he  has  driven  them  from  the  appointed  places  of  his  solemn 
worship,  so  that  they  cannot  have  the  use  of  them,  will  not,  for 
all  this,  endure  to  be  served,  or  prayed  to  by  them,  in  such  places 
nor  accept  of  their  barn-worship,  nor  their  hogsty-worship,  no, 
nor  yet  of  their  parlour  or  their  chamber-worship,  where  he  has 
given  them  both  wealth  and  power  to  build  him  churches.  For 
he  that  commands  us  to  "  worship  him  in  the  spirit,"  commands 
us,  also  "  to  honour  him  with  our  substance."    And  never  pretend 


GOOD  INTENTIONS  NO  EXCUSE  FOR  BAD  ACTIONS*  167 

that  thou  hast  a  heart  to  pray,  while  thou  hast  no  heart  to  give  ; 
since  he  that  serves  mammon  with  his  estate,  cannot  possibly 
serve  God  with  his  heart.  For  as  in  the  heathen  worship  of  God, 
a  sacrifice  without  a  heart  was  accounted  ominous ;  so,  in  the 
Christian  worship  of  him,  a  heart  without  a  sacrifice  is  worthless 
and  impertinent. 

And  thus  much  for  men's  pretences  of  the  will,  when  they  are 
called  upon  to  give  upon  a  religious  account ;  according  to  which 
a  man  may  be  well  enough  said,  as  the  common  word  is,  to  be  all 
heart,  and  yet  the  arrantest  miser  in  the  world. 

But  come  we  now  to  this  old  rich  pretender  to  godliness,  in 
another  case,  and  tell  him,  that  there  is  such  a  one,  a  man  of  a 
good  family,  good  education,  and  who  has  lost  all  his  estate  for 
the  king,  now  ready  to  rot  in  prison  for  debt ;  come,  what  will 
you  give  towards  his  release  ?  Why  then,  answers  the  will  instead 
of  the  deed,  as  much  the  readier  speaker  of  the  two,  1  The  truth 
is,  I  always  had  a  respect  for  such  men  ;  I  love  them  with  all  my 
heart ;  and  it  is  a  thousand  pities  that  any  that  have  served  the 
king  so  faithfully  should  be  in  such  want.'  So  say  I  too  ;  and  the 
more  shame  is  it  for  the  whole  nation,  that  they  should  be  so  :  but 
still  what  will  you  give  ?  Why,  then  answers  the  man  of  mouth- 
charity  again,  and  tells  you,  '  That  you  could  not  come  at  a  worse 
time ;  that  money  is  now-a-days  very  scarce  with  him,  and  that 
therefore  he  can  give  nothing  ;  but  he  will  be  sure  to  pray  for  the 
poor  gentleman.' 

Ah,  thou  hypocrite !  when  thy  brother  has  lost  all  that  ever 
he  had,  and  lies  languishing,  and  even  gasping  under  the  utmost 
extremities  of  poverty  and  distress ;  dost  thou  think  thus  to  lick 
him  whole  again  only  with  thy  tongue  ?  Just  like  that  old  formal 
hocus,  who  denied  a  beggar  a  farthing,  and  put  him  off  with  his 
blessing. 

Why,  what  are  the  prayers  of  a  covetous  wretch  worth  ?  What 
will  thy  blessing  go  for  ?  What  will  it  buy  ?  Is  this  the  charity  that 
the  apostle  here,  in  the  text,  presses  upon  the  Corinthians  ?  This 
the  case,  in  which  God  accepts  the  willingness  of  the  mind,  in- 
stead of  the  liberality  of  the  purse  ?  No  assuredly,  but  the 
measures  that  God  marks  out  to  thy  charity,  are  these :  thy  su- 
perfluities must  give  place  to  thy  neighbour's  great  convenience : 
thy  convenience  must  veil  to  thy  neighbour's  necessity ;  and, 
lastly,  thy  very  necessities  must  yield  to  thy  neighbour's  ex- 
tremity. 

This  is  the  gradual  process  that  must  be  thy  rule  ;  and  he  that 
pretends  a  disability  to  give,  short  of  this,  prevaricates  with  his 
duty,  and  evacuates  the  precept.  God  sometimes  calls  upon  thee 
to  relieve  the  needs  of  thy  poor  brother,  sometimes  the  necessities 
of  thy  country,  and  sometimes  the  urgent  wants  of  thy  prince  ; 
now,  before  thou  fliest  to  the  old,  stale,  usual  pretence,  that  thou 
canst  do  none  of  all  these  things,  consider  with  thyself,  that  there 


168 


DR.   SOUTIl's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  X." 


is  a  God,  who  is  not  to  be  flammed  off  with  lies,  who  knows 
exactly  what  thou  canst  do,  and  what  thou  canst  not :  and  consider, 
in  the  next  place,  that  it  is  not  the  best  husbandry  in  the  world,  to 
be  damned  to  save  charges. 

4.  The  fourth  and  last  duty  that  I  shall  mention,  in  which  men 
use  to  plead  want  of  power  to  do  the  thing  they  have  a  will  to,  is 
the  conquering  of  a  long,  inveterate  ill  habit  or  custom. 

And  the  truth  is,  there  is  nothing  that  leaves  a  man  less  power 
to  do  good  than  this  does.  Nevertheless  that  which  weakens 
the  hand  does  not  therefore  cut  it  off.  Some  power  to  good,  no 
doubt  a  man  has  left  him,  for  all  this :  and  therefore,  God  will  not 
take  the  drunkard's  excuse,  that  he  has  so  long  accustomed 
himself  to  intemperate  drinking,  that  now  he  cannot  leave  it  off; 
nor  admit  of  the  passionate  man's  apology,  that  he  has  so  long 
given  his  unruly  passions  their  head,  that  he  cannot  now  govern 
or  control  them.  For  these  things  are  not  so  ;  since  no  man  is 
guilty  of  an  act  of  intemperance  of  any  sort,  but  he  might  have 
forborn  it ;  not  without  some  trouble,  I  confess,  from  the  smug- 
glings of  the  contrary  'labit ;  but  still  the  thing  was  possible  to  be 
done ;  and  he  might,  after  all,  have  forborn  it.  And,  as  he 
forbore  one  act,  so  he  might  have  forborn  another,  and  after  that 
another,  and  so  on,  till  he  had,  by  degrees,  weakened,  and,  at 
length,  mortified,  and  extinguished  the  habit  itself.  That  these 
things,  indeed,  are  not  quickly  or  easily  to  be  effected,  is  manifest, 
and  nothing  will  be  more  readily  granted ;  and  therefore  the 
scripture  itself  owns  so  much,  by  expressing  and  representing 
these  mortifying  courses,  by  acts  of  the  greatest  toil  and  labour ; 
such  as  are,  warfare,  and  taking  up  the  cross ;  and  by  acts  of  the 
most  terrible  violence,  and  contrariety  to  nature ;  such  as  are, 
cutting  off  the  right  hand,  and  plucking  out  the  right  eye;  things 
infinitely  grievous  and  afflictive,  yet  still,  for  all  that,  feasible 
in  themselves;  or  else,  to  be  sure,  the  eternal  wisdom  of  God 
would  never  have  advised,  and  much  less  have  commanded  them. 
For  what  God  has  commanded,  must  be  done ;  and  what  must 
be  done,  assuredly  may  be  done  ;  and  therefore,  all  pleas  of  im- 
potence or  inability,  in  such  cases,  are  utterly  false  and  imperti- 
nent, and  will  infallibly  be  thrown  back  in  the  face  of  such  as 
make  them. 

But  you  will  say,  does  not  the  scripture  itself  acknowledge  it 
as  a  thing  impossible  for  a  man,  brought  under  the  custom 
of  sin,  to  forbear  sinning?  In  Jer.  xiii.  23,  "  Can  the  Ethiopian 
change  his  skin,  or  the  leopard  his  spots  ?  then  may  ye  also  do 
good,  that  are  accustomed  to  do  evil."  Now  if  this  can  be  no 
more  done  than  the  former,  is  it  not  a  demonstration  that  it  cannot 
be  done  at  all? 

To  this  I  answer,  that  the  words  mentioned  are  tropical  or 
figurative,  and  import  an  hyperbole,  which  is  a  way  of  express- 
ing things  beyond  what  really  and  naturally  they  are  in  them- 


GOOD  INTENTIONS  NO  EXCUSE  FOR  BAD  ACTIONS.  169 


selves  ;  and,  consequently,  the  design  of  this  scripture,  in  saying 
that  this  cannot  be  done,  is  no  more  than  to  show,  that  it  is  very 
hardly  and  very  rarely  done ;  but  not  in  strict  truth,  utterly 
impossible  to  be  done. 

In  vain,  therefore,  do  men  take  sanctuary  in  such  misunder- 
stood expressions  as  these ;  and  from  a  false  persuasion,  that 
they  cannot  reform  their  lives,  break  off  their  ill  customs,  and 
root  out  their  old  vicious  habits,  never  so  much  as  attempt,  en- 
deavour, or  go  about  it.  For  admit  that  such  a  habit,  seated 
in  the  soul,  be,  as  our  Saviour  calls  it,  "a  strong  man  armed, 
got  into  possession yet  still  he  may  be  dispossessed  and  thrown 
out  by  a  stronger,  Luke  xi.  21,  22.  Or  be  it,  as  St.  Paul  calls 
it,  "  a  law  in  our  members,"  Rom.  vii.  23,  yet  certainly,  ill  laws 
may  be  broken  and  disobeyed  as  well  as  good.  But  if  men  will 
suffer  themselves  to  be  enslaved,  and  carried  away  by  their  lusts, 
without  resistance,  and  wear  the  devil's  yoke  quietly,  rather 
than  be  at  the  trouble  of  throwing  it  off,  and  thereupon  some- 
times feel  their  consciences  galled  and  grieved  by  wearing  it, 
they  must  not,  from  these  secret  stings  and  remorses  felt  by 
them  in  the  prosecution  of  their  sins,  presently  conclude,  that 
therefore  their  will  is  good  and  well  disposed ;  and,  consequently, 
such  as  God  will  accept,  though  their  lives  remain  all  the  while 
unchanged,  and  as  much  under  the  dominion  of  sin  as  ever. 

These  reasonings,  I  know,  lie  deep  in  the  minds  of  most  men, 
and  relieve  and  support  their  hearts  in  spite  and  in  the  midst  of 
their  sins ;  yet  they  are  all  but  sophistry  and  delusion,  and  false 
propositions  contrived  by  the  devil,  to  hold  men  fast  in  their 
sins  by  final  impenitence.  For  though  possibly  the  grace  of 
God  may,  in  some  cases,  be  irresistible  ;  yet  it  would  be  an  in- 
finite reproach  to  his  providence  to  affirm,  that  sin  either  is  or 
can  be  so.  And  thus  I  have  given  you  four  principal  instances, 
in  which  men  use  to  plead  the  will  instead  of  the  deed,  upon  a 
pretended  impotence  or  disability  for  the  deed  ;  namely,  in  duties 
of  great  labour  ;  in  duties  of  much  danger  ;  in  duties  of  cost  and 
expense ;  and  lastly,  in  duties  requiring  a  resistance  and  an  extir- 
pation of  inveterate  sinful  habits. 

In  the  neglect  of  all  which,  men  relieve  their  consciences  by 
this  one  great  fallacy  running  through  them  all,  that  they  mistake 
difficulties  for  impossibilities.  A  pernicious  mistake  certainly ; 
and  the  more  pernicious,  for  that  men  are  seldom  convinced  of 
it  till  their  conviction  can  do  them  no  good.  There  cannot  be  a 
weightier  or  more  important  case  of  conscience  for  men  to  be  re- 
solved in,  than  to  know  certainly  how  far  God  accepts  the  will  for 
the  deed,  and  how  far  he  does  not ;  and  withal  to  be  informed 
truly  when  men  do  really  will  a  thing,  and  when  they  have  really 
no  power  to  do  what  they  have  willed. 

For  surely  it  cannot  but  be  matter  of  very  dreadful  and  terri- 

Vol.  L— 22  P 


170 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  X. 


fying  consideration  to  any  one  sober  and  in  his  wits,  to  think 
seriously  with  himself,  what  horror  and  confusion  must  needs 
surprise  that  man,  at  the  last  and  great  day  of  account,  who  had 
led  his  whole  life  and  governed  all  his  actions  by  one  rule,  when 
God  intends  to  judge  him  by  another. 

To  which  God,  the  great  searcher  and  judge  of  hearts,  and 
rewarder  of  men  according  to  their  deeds,  be  rendered  and 
ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion, 
both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


171 


SERMON  XL 

OF  THE  ORIGIN,  NATURE,  AND  BASENESS  OF  THE  SIN  OF 
INGRATITUDE. 

[Preached  at  Christ  Church,  Oxon,  before  the  University,  October  17,  1675.] 

Judges  viii.  34,  35. 

And  the  children  of  Israel  remembered  not  the  Lord  their  God,  who 
had  delivered  them  out  of  the  hands  of  all  their  enemies  on  every 
side :  neither  showed  they  kindness  to  the  house  of  Jerubbaal, 
namely,  Gideon,  according  to  all  the  goodness  which  he  had 
showed  unto  Israel. 

These  words,  being  a  result  of  judgment  given  upon  matter 
of  fact,  naturally  directs  us  to  the  foregoing  story,  to  inform  us 
of  their  occasion.  The  subject  of  which  story  was  that  heroic 
and  victorious  judge  of  Israel,  Gideon  ;  wTho,  by  the  greatness  of 
his  achievements,  had  merited  the  offer  of  a  crown  and  kingdom, 
and,  by  the  greatness  of  his  mind,  refused  it.  The  whole  narra- 
tive is  contained  and  set  before  us  in  the  6th,  7th,  8th,  and  9th 
chapters  of  this  book;  where  we'read,  that  when  the  children  of 
Israel,  according  to  their  usual  method  of  sinning  after  mercies 
and  deliverances,  and  thereupon  returning  to  a  fresh  enslavement 
to  their  enemies,  had  now  passed  seven  years  in  cruel  subjection 
to  the  Midianites,  a  potent  and  insulting  enemy,  and  who  op- 
pressed them  to  that  degree,  that  they  had  scarce  bread  to  fill 
their  mouths,  or  houses  to  cover  their  heads ;  for,  in  the  second 
verse  of  the  sixth  chapter,  we  find  them  housing  themselves 
under  ground  in  dens  and  caves  ;  and  in  ver.  3,  4,  no  sooner  had 
they  sown  their  corn,  but  we  have  the  enemy  coming  up  in 
armies  and  destroying  it.  In  this  sad  and  calamitous  condition, 
I  say,  in  which  one  would  have  thought  that  a  deliverance  from 
such  an  oppressor  would  have  even  revived  them,  and  the  de- 
liverer eternally  obliged  them,  God  raised  up  the  spirit  of  this 
great  person,  and  ennobled  his  courage  and  conduct  with  the  en- 
tire overthrow  of  this  mighty  and  numerous,  or  rather  innumera- 
ble host  of  the  Midianites  ;  and  that  in  such  a  manner,  and  with 
such  strange  and  unparalleled  circumstances,  that  in  the  whole 
action,  the  mercy  and  the  miracle  seemed  to  sfrive  for  the  pre- 
eminence. And  so  quick  a  sense  did  the  Israelites,  immediately 
after  it,  seem  to  entertain  of  the  merits  of  Gideon,  and  the 
obligation  he  had  laid  upon  them,  that  they  all,  as  one  man, 
tender  him  the  regal  and  hereditary  government  of  that  people, 


172 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XI. 


in  the  22nd  verse  of  this  eighth  chapter ;  "  Then  said  the  men 
of  Israel  to  Gideon,  Rule  thou  over  us,  both  thou,  and  thy  son, 
and  thy  son's  son  also :  for  thou  hast  delivered  us  from  the  hand 
of  Midian."  To  which  he  answered  as  magnanimously,  and  by 
that  answer  redoubled  the  obligation  in  the  next  verse,  "I  will 
not  rule  over  you,  neither  shall  my  son  rule  over  you,  but  the  Lord 
shall  rule  over  you." 

Thus  far  then  we  see  the  workings  of  a  just  gratitude  in  the 
Israelites ;  and  goodness  on  the  one  side  nobly  answered  with 
greatness  on  the  other.  And  now,  after  so  vast  an  obligation, 
owned  by  so  free  an  acknowledgment,  could  any  thing  be  ex- 
pected but  a  continual  interchange  of  kindnesses,  at  least  on 
their  part  who  had  been  so  infinitely  obliged  and  so  gloriously 
delivered  ?  Yet  in  the  ninth  chapter,  we  find  these  very  men 
turning  the  sword  of  Gideon  into  his  own  bowels  ;  cutting  off 
the  very  race  and  posterity  of  their  deliverer,  by  the  slaughter  of 
threescore  and  ten  of  his  sons,  and  setting  up  the  son  of  his  con- 
cubine,  the  blot  of  his  family,  and  the  monument  of  his  shame, 
to  reign  over  them ;  and  all  this  without  the  least  provocation  or 
offence  given  them,  either  by  Gideon  himself,  or  by  any  of  his 
house.  After  which  horrid  fact,  I  suppose  we  can  no  longer 
wonder  at  this  unlooked-for  account  given  of  the  Israelites  in 
the  text,  "  That  they  remembered  not  the  Lord  their  God,  who 
had  delivered  them  out  of  the  hands  of  all  their  enemies  on 
every  side ;  neither  showed  they  kindness  to  the  house  of  Gideon, 
according  to  all  the  goodness  which  he  had  showed  unto  Israel." 

The  truth  is,  they  were  all  along  a  cross,  odd,  untoward  sort  of 
people,  and  such  as  God  seems  to  have  chosen,  and  (as  the 
prophets  sometimes  phrase  it)  to  have  espoused  to  himself,  upon 
the  very  same  account  that  Socrates  espoused  Xantippe,  only  for 
her  extreme  ill-conditions,  above  all  that  he  could  possibly  find 
or  pick  out  of  that  sex  ;  and  so  the  fittest  argument  both  to 
exercise  and  declare  his  admirable  patience  to  the  world. 

The  words  of  the  text  are  a  charge  given  in  against  the 
Israelites ;  a  charge  of  that  foul  and  odious  sin  of  ingratitude  ; 
and  that  both  towards  God  and  towards  man ;  towards  God  in 
the  34th  verse,  and  towards  man  in  the  35th.  Such  being  ever 
the  growing  contagion  of  this  ill  quality,  that  if  it  begins  at  God, 
it  naturally  descends  to  men  ;  and  if  it  first  exerts  itself  upon 
men,  it  infallibly  ascends  to  God.  If  we  consider  it  as  directed 
against  God,  it  is  a  breach  of  religion ;  if  as  to  men,  it  is  an 
offence  against  morality.  The  passage  from  one  to  the  other  is 
very  easy :  breach  of  duty  towards  our  neighbour,  still  involving 
in  it  a  breach  of  duty  towards  God  too ;  and  no  man's  religion 
ever  survives  his  morals. 

My  purpose  is  from  this  remarkable  subject  and  occasion,  to 
treat  of  ingratitude,  and  that  chiefly  in  this  latter  sense  ;  and 
from  the  case  of  the  Israelites  towards  Gideon,  to  traverse  the 


OF  THE  ODIOUS   SIN  OF  INGRATITUDE. 


173 


nature,  principles,  and  properties  of  this  detestable  vice  :  and  so 
drawing  before  your  eyes  the  several  lineaments  and  parts  of  it, 
from  the  ugly  aspect  of  the  picture,  to  leave  it  to  your  own  hearts 
to  judge  of  the  original.  For  the  effecting  of  which,  I  shall  do 
these  following  things : 

I.  I  shall  show  what  gratitude  is,  and  upon  what  the  obligation 
to  it  is  grounded. 

II.  I  shall  give  some  account  of  the  nature  and  baseness  of 
ingratitude. 

III.  I  shall  show  the  principle  from  which  ingratitude  pro- 
ceeds. 

IV.  I  shall  show  those  ill  qualities  that  inseparably  attend  it, 
and  are  never  disjoined  from  it.  And, 

V.  And  lastly,  I  shall  draw  some  useful  inferences,  by  way  of 
application,  from  the  premises. 

I.  And  first  for  the  first  of  these  :  What  gratitude  is,  and  upon 
what  the  obligation  to  it  is  grounded.  "  Gratitude  is  properly  a 
virtue,  disposing  the  mind  to  an  inward  sense  and  an  outward  ac- 
knowledgment of  a  benefit  received,  together  with  a  readiness  to 
return  the  same,  or  the  like,  as  the  occasions  of  the  doer  of  it 
shall  require,  and  the  abilities  of  the  receiver  extend  to." 

This,  to  me,  seems  to  contain  a  full  description,  or  rather  defi- 
nition of  this  virtue :  from  which  it  appears,  that  gratitude  includes 
in  it  these  three  parts  : 

1.  A  particular  observation,  or  taking  notice  of  a  kindness  re- 
ceived, and  consequently  of  the  good  will  and  affection  of  the 
person  who  did  that  kindness.  For  still,  in  this  case,  the  mind  of 
the  giver  is  more  to  be  attended  to,  than  the  matter  of  the  gift ; 
it  being  this  that  stamps  it  properly  a  favour,  and  gives  it  the  noble 
and  endearing  denomination  of  a  kindness. 

2.  The  second  part  of  gratitude  is  that  which  brings  it  from  the 
heart  into  the  mouth,  and  makes  a  man  express  the  sense  he  has 
of  the  benefit  done  him  by  thanks,  acknowledgments,  and  gratula- 
tions ;  and  where  the  heart  is  full  of  the  one,  it  will  certainly 
overflow,  and  run  over  in  the  other. 

3.  The  third  and  last  is,  an  endeavour  to  recompense  our  bene- 
factor, and  to  do  something  that  may  redound  to  his  advantage, 
in  consideration  of  what  he  has  done  towards  ours.  I  state  it  upon 
endeavour,  and  not  upon  effect ;  for  this  latter  may  be  often  impos- 
sible. But  it  is  in  the  power  of  every  one  to  do  as  much  as  he 
can ;  to  make  some  essay  at  least,  some  offer  and  attempt  this 
way ;  so  as  to  show  that  there  is  a  spring  of  motion  within,  and 
that  the  heart  is  not  idle  or  insensible,  but  that  it  is  full  and  big, 
and  knows  itself  to  be  so,  though  it  wants  strength  to  bring  forth. 
Having  thus  shown  what  gratitude  is,  the  next  thing  is  to  show 
the  obligation  that  it  brings  upon  a  man,  and  the  ground  and 
reason  of  that  obligation. 

p2 


174 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SER^I.  XI. 


As  for  the  obligation,  I  know  no  moralists  or  casuists,  that 
treat  scholastically  of  justice,  but  treat  of  gratitude  under  that 
general  head,  as  a  part  or  species  of  it.  And  the  nature  and 
office  of  justice  being  to  dispose  the  mind  to  a  constant  and  per- 
petual readiness  to  render  to  every  man  his  due,  suum  caique 
tribuere,  it  is  evident,  that  if  gratitude  be  a  part  of  justice,  it 
must  be  conversant  about  something  that  is  due  to  another  :  and 
whatsoever  is  so,  must  be  so  by  the  force  of  some  law.  Now,  all 
law  that  a  man  is  capable  of  being  obliged  by,  is  reducible  to  one 
of  these  three. 

1.  The  law  of  nature.  2.  The  positive  law  of  God,  revealed 
in  his  word.  3.  The  law  of  man,  enacted  by  the  civil  power  for 
the  preservation  and' good  of  society. 

1.  And  first  for  the  law  of  nature,  which  I  take  to  be  nothing 
else  but  the  mind  of  God  signified  to  a  rational  agent  by  the  bare 
discourse  of  his  reason,  and  dictating  to  him  that  he  ought  to 
act  suitably  to  the  principles  of  his  nature,  and  to  those  relations 
that  he  stands  under.  For  every  thing  sustains  both  an  absolute 
and  a  relative  capacity :  an  absolute,  as  it  is  such  a  thing  endued 
with  such  a  nature  ;  and  a  relative,  as  it  is  a  part  of  the  universe, 
and  so  stands  in  such  an  order  and  relation  both  to  the  whole,  and 
to  the  rest  of  the  parts. 

After  which,  the  next  consideration  immediately  subsequent 
to  the  being  of  a  thing,  is  what  agrees,  or  disagrees  with  that 
thing ;  what  is  suitable,  or  unsuitable  to  it ;  and  from  this  springs 
the  notion  of  decency  or  indecency ;  that  which  becomes  or  mis- 
becomes, and  is- the  same  with  honestumvelturpe.  Which  decency, 
or  *o  rtps'rtoj/j  as  the  Greeks  term  it,  imports  a  certain  measure 
or  proportion  of  one  thing  to  another  ;  which  to  transgress,  is  to 
do  contrary  to  the  natural  order  of  things  ;  the  preservation  of 
which  is  properly  that  rule  or  law  by  which  every  thing  ought 
to  act ;  and  consequently,  the  violation  of  it  implies  a  turpitude 
or  indecency.  Now  those  actions  that  are  suitable  to  a  rational 
nature,  and  to  that  rt^nov^  that  decency  or  honestum  belonging 
to  it,  are  contained  and  expressed  in  certain  maxims  or  proposi- 
tions, which,  upon  the  repeated  exercise  of  a  man's  reason  about 
such  objects  as  come  before  him,  do  naturally  result,  and  are 
collected  from  thence  ;  and  so  remaining  upon  his  mind,  become 
both  a  rule  to  direct  and  a  law  to  oblige  him  in  the  whole  course 
of  his  actions.  Such  are  these  maxims :  that  the  supreme  being, 
cause,  and  governor  of  all  things,  ought  to  be  worshipped  and 
depended  upon  :  that  parents  are  to  be  honoured :  that  a  man 
should  do  as  he  would  be  done  by.  From  which  last  alone  may 
sufficiently  be  deduced  all  those  rules  of  charity  and  justice  that 
are  to  govern  the  offices  of  common  life ;  and  which  alone  is 
enough  to  found  an  obligation  to  gratitude  :  forasmuch  as  no  man, 
having  done  a  kindness  to  another,  would  acquiesce  or  think 
himself  justly  dealt  with,  in  a  total  neglect  and  unconcernedness 


OF  THE  ODIOUS  SIN  OF  INGRATITUDE. 


175 


of  the  person  who  had  received  that  kindness  from  him  ;  and 
consequently,  neither  ought  he  to  be  unconcerned  in  the  same- 
case  himself. 

But  I  shall,  from  other  and  nearer  principles,  and  those  the 
unquestionable  documents  and  dictates  of  the  law  of  nature, 
evince  the  obligation  and  debt  lying  upon  every  man  to  show 
gratitude,  where  he  has  received  a  benefit.  Such  as  are  these 
propositions : 

(1.)  That  according  to  the  rule  of  natural  justice,  one  man 
may  merit  and  deserve  of  another.  (2.)  That  whosoever  deserves 
of  another,  makes  something  due  to  him  from  the  person  of 
whom  he  deserves.  (3.)  That  one  man's  deserving  of  another  is 
founded  upon  his  conferring  on  him  some  good,  to  which  that 
other  had  no  right  or  claim.  (4)  That  no  man  has  any  ante- 
cedent right  or  claim  to  that  which  comes  to  him  by  free  gift. 
(5.)  And  lastly,  That  all  desert  imports  an  equality  between  the 
good  conferred,  and  the  good  deserved,  or  made  due.  From 
whence  it  follows,  that  he  who  confers  a  good  upon  another, 
deserves,  and  consequently  has  a  claim  to  an  equal  good  from  the 
person  upon  whom  it  was  conferred.  So  that  from  hence,  by  the 
law  of  nature,  springs  a  debt ;  the  acknowledging  and  repaying 
of  which  debt,  as  a  man  shall  be  able,  is  the  proper  office  and 
work  of  gratitude. 

As  certain  therefore,  as  by  the  law  of  nature  there  may  be, 
and  often  is,  such  a  thing  as  merit  and  desert  from  one  man  to 
another ;  and  as  desert  gives  the  person  deserving  a  right  or 
claim  to  some  good  from  the  person  of  whom  he  deserves  ;  and 
as  a  right  in  one  to  claim  this  good,  infers  a  debt  and  obligation 
in  the  other  to  pay  it ;  so  certain  it  is,  by  a  direct  gradation  of 
consequences  from  this  principle  of  merit,  that  the  obligation  to 
gratitude  flows  from,  and  is  enjoined  by,  the  first  dictates  of 
nature.  And  the  truth  is,  the  greatest  and  most  sacred  ties  of 
duty,  that  man  is  capable  of,  are  founded  upon  gratitude.  Such 
as  are  the  duties  of  a  child  to  his  parent,  and  of  a  subject  to  his 
sovereign  :  from  the  former  of  which  there  is  required  love  and 
honour,  in  recompence  of  being ;  and  from  the  latter,  obedience 
and  subjection,  in  recompence  of  protection  and  well-being.  And 
in  general,  if  the  conferring  of  a  kindness  did  not  bind  the  per- 
son upon  whom  it  was  conferred,  to  the  returns  of  gratitude  ; 
why,  in  the  universal  dialect  of  the  world,  are  kindnesses  still 
called  obligations? 

And  thus  much  for  the  first  ground,  enforcing  the  obligations 
of  gratitude ;  namely,  the  law  of  nature.    In  the  next  place, 

2.  As  for  the  positive  law  of  God  revealed  in  his  word,  it  is 
evident  that  gratitude  must  needs  be  enjoined  and  made  neces- 
sary, by  all  those  scriptures  that  upbraid  or  forbid  ingratitude ; 
as,  in  2  Tim.  iii.  2,  the  unthankful  stand  reckoned  among  the 
highest  and  most  enormous  sinners  ;  which  sufficiently  evinces 


176 


DR.  SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XT. 


the  virtue  opposite  to  unthankfulness  to  bear  the  same  place  in 
the  rank  of  duties,  that  its  contrary  does  in  the  catalogue  of  sins. 
And  the  like,  by  consequence,  is  inferred  from  all  those  places, 
in  which  we  are  commanded  to  "  love  our  enemies,"  and  to  "  do 
good  to  those  that  hate  us :"  and  therefore  certainly  much  more 
are  we  by  the  same  commanded  to  do  good  to  those  that  have 
prevented  us  with  good,  and  actually  obliged  us.  So  that  it  is 
manifest,  that  by  the  positive  written  law  of  God,  no  less  than  by 
the  law  of  nature,  gratitude  is  a  debt. 

3.  In  the  third  and  last  place ;  as  for  the  laws  of  men,  enacted 
by  the  civil  power,  it  must  be  confessed,  that  gratitude  is  not 
enforced  by  them ;  I  say,  not  enforced,  that  is,  not  enjoined  by 
the  sanction  of  penalties,  to  be  inflicted  upon  the  person  that 
shall  not  be  found  grateful.  I  grant  indeed,  that  many  actions 
are  punished  by  law  that  are  acts  of  ingratitude;  but  this  is 
merely  accidental  to  them,  as  they  are  such  acts ;  for,  if  they 
were  punished  properly  under  that  notion,  and  upon  that  account, 
the  punishment  would  equally  reach  all  actions  of  the  same  kind ; 
but  they  are  punished  and  provided  against  by  law,  as  they  are 
gross  and  dangerous  violations  of  societies,  and  that  common 
good,  that  it  is  the  business  of  the  civil  laws  of  all  nations  to  pro- 
tect, and  to  take  care  of ;  which  good  not  being  violated  or 
endangered  by  every  omission  of  gratitude  between  man  and  man, 
the  laws  make  no  peculiar  provision  to  secure  the  exercise  of  this 
virtue ;  but  leave  it,  as  they  found  it,  sufficiently  enjoined,  and 
made  a  duty  to  the  law  of  God  and  nature. 

Though  in  the  Roman  law  indeed  there  is  this  particular  pro- 
vision against  the  breach  of  this  duty  in  case  of  slaves ;  that  if  a 
lord  manumits,  and  makes  free  his  slave,  gross  ingratitude  in  the 
person  so  made  free,  forfeits  his  freedom,  and  reasserts  him  to  his 
former  condition  of  slavery ;  though  perhaps  even  this  also,  upon 
an  accurate  consideration,  will  be  found  not  a  provision  against 
ingratitude,  properly  and  formally  as  such  ;  but  as  it  is  the  in- 
gratitude of  slaves,  which,  if  left  unpunished  in  a  commonwealth, 
where  it  was  the  custom  for  men  to  be  served  by  slaves,  as  in 
Rome  it  was,  would  quickly  have  been  a  public  nuisance  and  dis- 
turbance ;  for  such  is  the  peculiar  insolence  of  this  sort  of  men, 
such  the  incorrigible  vileness  of  all  slavish  spirits,  that  though 
freedom  may  rid  them  of  the  baseness  of  their  condition,  yet  it 
never  takes  off  the  baseness  of  their  minds. 

And  now,  having  shown  both  what  gratitude  is,  and  the  ground 
and  reasons  of  men's  obligation  to  it,  we  have  a  full  account  of 
the  proper  and  particular  nature  of  this  virtue,  as  consisting 
adequately  in  these  two  things :  first,  that  it  is  a  debt ;  and 
secondly,  that  it  is  such  a  debt  as  is  left  to  every  man's  ingenuity, 
in  respect  of  any  legal  coaction,  whether  he  will  pay  or  no ;  for 
there  lies  no  action  of  debt  against  him,  if  he  will  not.  He  is  in 
danger  of  no  arrest,  bound  over  to  no  assize,  nor  forced  to  hold 


OF  THE  ODIOUS  SIN  OF  INGRATITUDE. 


177 


up  his  unworthy  hand  (the  instrument  of  his  ingratitude)  at  any 
bar. 

And  this  it  is,  that  shows  the  rare  and  distinguishing  excellency 
of  gratitude,  and  sets  it  as  a  crown  upon  the  head  of  all  other 
virtues,  that  it  should  plant  such  an  overruling  generosity  in  the 
heart  of  man,  as  shall  more  effectually  incline  him  to  what  is  brave 
and  becoming,  than  the  terror  of  any  penal  law  whatsoever. 
So  that  he  shall  feel  a  greater  force  upon  himself  from  within, 
and  from  the  control  of  his  own  principles,  to  engage  to  do 
worthily,  than  all  threatenings  and  punishments,  racks  and  tortures 
can  have  upon  a  low  and  servile  mind,  that  never  acts  virtuously, 
but  as  it  is  acted :  that  knows  no  principle  of  doing  wrell  but 
fear ;  no  conscience  but  constraint.  On  the  contrary,  the  grate- 
ful person  fears  no  court  or  judge,  no  sentence  or  executioner, 
but  what  he  carries  about  him  in  his  own  breast :  and  being  still 
the  most  severe  exactor  of  himself,  not  only  confesses,  but  pro- 
claims his  debts  ;  his  ingenuity  is  his  bond,  and  his  conscience  a 
thousand  witnesses  :  so  that  the  debt  must  needs  be  sure,  yet  he 
scorns  to  be  sued  for  it ;  nay,  rather  he  is  always  suing,  impor- 
tuning, and  even  reproaching  himself,  till  he  can  clear  accounts 
with  his  benefactor.  His  heart  is,  as  it  were,  in  continual  labour  ; 
it  even  travails  with  the  obligation,  and  is  in  pangs  till  it  be  de- 
livered :  and  as  David,  in  the  overflowing  sense  of  God's  good- 
ness to  him,  cries  out  in  the  116th  Psalm,  ver.  12,  "  What  shall 
I  render  unto  the  Lord  for  all  his  benefits  unto  me?"  so  the 
grateful  person,  pressed  down  under  the  apprehension  of  any 
great  kindness  done  him,  eases  his  burdened  mind  a  little  by 
such  expostulations  with  himself  as  these  :  c  What  shall  I  do  for 
such  a  friend,  for  such  a  patron,  who  has  so  frankly,  so  gene- 
rously, so  unconstrainedly  relieved  me  in  such  a  distress ;  sup- 
ported me  against  such  an  enemy ;  supplied,  cherished,  and  up- 
held me  when  relations  would  not  know  me,  or  at  least  could  not 
help  me  ;  and,  in  a  word,  has  prevented  my  desires,  and  outdone 
my  necessities  ?  I  can  never  do  enough  for  him ;  my  own  con- 
science would  spit  in  my  face,  should  I  ever  slight  or  forget  such 
favours.'  These  are  the  expostulating  dialogues  and  contests 
that  every  grateful,  every  truly  noble  and  magnanimous  person 
has  with  himself.  It  was,  in  part,  a  brave  speech  of  Luc.  Cor- 
nelius Sylla,  the  Roman  dictator,  who  said,  that  "  he  found  no 
sweetness  in  being  great  or  powerful,  but  only  that  it  enabled  him 
to  crush  his  enemies,  and  to  gratify  his  friends."  I  cannot  warrant 
or  defend  the  first  part  of  this  saying ;  but  surely  he  that  employs 
his  greatness  in  the  latter,  be  he  never  so  great,  it  must  and  will 
make  him  still  greater. 

And  thus  much  for  the  first  general  thing  proposed  ;  which  was 
to  show  what  gratitude  is,  and  upon  what  the  obligation  to  it  is 
grounded.    I  proceed  now  to  the  second  ;  which  is, 

Vol.  L— 23 


178 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XI. 


II.  To  give  some  account  of  the  nature  and  baseness  of  ingrati- 
tude. There  is  not  any  one  vice  or  ill  quality  incident  to  the 
mind  of  man,  against  which  the  world  has  raised  such  a  loud  and 
universal  outcry,  as  against  ingratitude :  a  vice  never  mentioned 
by  any  heathen  writer,  but  wTith  a  particular  height  of  detesta- 
tion ;  and  of  such  a  malignity,  that  human  nature  must  be  strip- 
ped of  humanity  itself,  before  it  can  be  guilty  of  it.  It  is  instead 
of  all  other  vices ;  and,  in  the  balance  of  morality,  a  counterpoise 
to  them  all.  In  the  charge  of  ingratitude,  omnia  dixeris :  it  is 
one  great  blot  upon  all  morality  :  it  is  all  in  a  word :  it  says  Amen 
to  the  black  roll  of  sins  :  it  gives  completion  and  confirmation  to 
them  all. 

If  we  would  state  the  nature  of  it,  recourse  must  be  had  to 
what  has  been  already  said  of  its  contrary ;  and  so  it  is  properly 
an  insensibility  of  kindnesses  received,  without  any  endeavour 
either  to  acknowledge  or  repay  them. 

To  repay  them,  indeed,  by  a  return  equivalent,  is  not  in  every 
one's  power,  and  consequently  cannot  be  his  duty;  but  thanks 
are  a  tribute  payable  by  the  poorest:  the  most  forlorn  widow  has 
her  two  mites ;  and  there  is  none  so  indigent,  but  has  a  heart 
to  be  sensible  of,  and  a  tongue  to  express  its  sense  of  a  benefit 
received. 

For  surely,  nature  gives  no  man  a  mouth  to  be  always  eating, 
and  never  saying  grace  ;  nor  a  hand  only  to  grasp  and  to  receive : 
but  as  it  is  furnished  with  teeth  for  the  one,  so  it  should  have  a 
tongue  also  for  the  other :  and  the  hands  that  are  so  often  reached 
out  to  take  and  to  accept,  should  be  sometimes  lifted  up  also  to 
bless.  The  world  is  maintained  by  intercourse  ;  and  the  whole 
course  of  nature  is  a  great  exchange,  in  which  one  good  turn  is 
and  ought  to  be  the  stated  price  of  another. 

If  you  consider  the  universe  as  one  body,  you  shall  find  society 
and  conversation  to  supply  the  office  of  the  blood  and  spirits  ; 
and  it  is  gratitude  that  makes  them  circulate.  Look  over  the 
whole  creation,  and  you  shall  see,  that  the  band  or  cement  that 
holds  together  all  the  parts  of  this  great  and  glorious  fabric  is 
gratitude,  or  something  like  it :  you  may  observe  it  in  all  the  ele- 
ments ;  for  does  not  the  air  feed  the  flame  ?  and  does  not  the  flame 
at  the  same  time  warm  and  enlighten  the  air  ?  Is  not  the  sea 
always  sending  forth,  as  well  as  taking  in  ?  and  does  not  the 
earth  quit  scores  with  all  the  elements,  in  the  noble  fruits  and 
productions  that  issue  from  it?  And  in  all  the  light  and  in- 
fluence that  the  heavens  bestow  upon  this  lower  world,  though 
the  lower  world  cannot  equal  their  benefaction,  yet  with  a  kind 
of  grateful  return,  it  reflects  those  rays  that  it  cannot  recom- 
pense :  so  that  there  is  some  return  however,  though  there  can 
be  no  requital.  He  who  has  a  soul  wholly  void  of  gratitude, 
should  do  well  to  set  his  soul  to  learn  of  his  body  ;  for  all  the 
carts  of  that  minister  to  one   another :   the  hands  and  all  the 


OF  THE  ODIOUS  SIN  OF  INGRATITUDE. 


179 


other  limbs  labour  to  bring  in  food  and  provision  to  the  stomach, 
and  the  stomach  returns  what  it  has  received  from  them,  in 
strength  and  nutriment  diffused  into  all  the  parts  and  members 
of  the  body.  It  would  be  endless  to  pursue  the  like  allusions  ; 
in  short,  gratitude  is  the  great  spring  that  sets  all  the  wheels  of 
nature  a  going ;  and  the  whole  universe  is  supported  by  giving 
and  returning,  by  commerce  and  commutation. 

And  now,  thou  ungrateful  brute,  thou  blemish  to  mankind, 
and  reproach  to  thy  creation  ;  what  shall  we  say  of  thee,  or  to 
what  shall  we  compare  thee!  For  thou  art  an  exception  from 
all  the  visible  world ;  neither  the  heavens  above,  nor  the  earth 
beneath,  afford  any  thing  like  thee :  and  therefore,  if  thou 
wouldst  find  thy  parallel,  go  to  hell,  which  is  both  the  region 
and  the  emblem  of  ingratitude  ;  for  besides  thyself,  there  is 
nothing  but  hell  that  is  always  receiving  and  never  restoring. 

And  thus  much  for  the  nature  and  baseness  of  ingratitude,  as 
it  has  been  represented  in  the  description  given  of  it.  Come  we 
now  to  the 

III.  Third  thing  proposed,  which  is,  to  show  the  principle  from 
which  it  proceeds.  And  to  give  you  this  in  one  word,  it  proceeds 
from  that  which  we  call  ill-nature  :  which  being  a  word  that 
occurs  frequently  in  discourse,  and  in  the  characters  given  of 
persons,  it  will  not  be  amiss  to  inquire  into  the  proper  sense  and 
signification  of  this  expression.  In  order  to  which  we  must  ob- 
serve, that  according  to  the  doctrine  of  the  philosopher,  man 
being  a  creature  designed  and  framed  by  nature  for  society  and 
conversation,  such  a  temper  or  disposition  of  mind,  as  inclines 
him  to  those  actions  that  promote  society*  and  mutual  fellowship,  is 
properly  called  good-nature  :  which  actions,  though  almost  innu- 
merable in  their  particulars,  yet  seem  reducible  in  general  to  two 
principles  of  action : 

1.  A  proneness  to  do  good  to  others.  2.  A  ready  sense  of  any 
good  done  by  others. 

And  where  these  two  meet  together,  as  they  are  scarce  ever 
found  asunder,  it  is  impossible  for  that  person  not  to  be  kind, 
beneficial,  and  obliging  to  all  whom  he  converses  with.  On  the 
contrary,  ill-nature  is  such  a  disposition  as  inclines  a  man  to 
those  actions  that  thwart,  and  sour,  and  disturb  conversation  be- 
tween man  and  man  ;  and  accordingly  consist  of  two  qualities 
directly  contrary  to  the  former : 

1.  A  proneness  to  do  ill  turns,  attended  with  a  complacency,  or 
secret  joy  of  mind,  upon  the  sight  of  any  mischief  that  befalls 
another.  And,  2.  An  utter  insensibility  of  any  good  or  kind- 
ness done  him  by  others.  I  mean  not  that  he  is  insensible  of  the 
good  itself ;  but  that,  although  he  finds,  feels,  and  enjoys,  the  good 
that  is  done  him,  yet  he  is  wholly  insensible  and  unconcerned  to 
value,  or  take  notice  of  the  benignity  of  him  that  does  it. 


180 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XI. 


Now  either  of  these  ill  qualities,  and  much  more  both  of  them 
together,  denominate  a  person  ill-natured,  they  being  such  as 
make  him  grievous  and  uneasy  to  all  whom  he  deals  and  associ- 
ates himself  with :  for  from  the  former  of  these  proceed  envy, 
an  aptness  to  slander  and  revile,  to  cross  and  hinder  a  man  in 
his  lawful  advantages.  For  these  and  such  like  actions  feed  and 
gratify  that  base  humour  of  mind,  which  gives  a  man  a  delight 
in  making,  at  least  in  seeing  his  neighbour  miserable :  and  from 
the  latter  issues  that  vile  thing  which  we  have  been  hitherto 
speaking  of,  to  wit,  ingratitude,  into  which  all  kindnesses  and 
good  turns  fall  as  into  a  kind  of  dead  sea:  it  being  a  quality 
that  confines,  and,  as  it  were,  shuts  up  a  man  wholly  within 
himself,  leaving  him  void  of  that  principle  which  alone  would 
dispose  him  to  communicate  and  impart  those  redundancies  of 
good  that  he  is  possessed  of.  No  man  ever  goes  sharer  with  the 
ungrateful  person,  be  he  never  so  full  he  never  runs  over ;  but, 
like  Gideon's  fleece,  though  filled  and  replenished  with  the  dew 
of  heaven  himself,  yet  he  leaves  all  dry  and  empty  about  him. 

Now  this  surely,  if  any  thing,  is  an  effect  of  ill-nature.  And 
what  is  ill-nature  but  a  pitch  beyond  original  corruption  ?  It  is 
corruptio  pessimi ;  a  further  depravation  of  that  which  was  stark 
naught  before.  But  so  certainly  does  it  shoot  forth  and  show 
itself  in  this  vice,  that  wheresoever  you  see  ingratitude,  you  may 
as  infallibly  conclude  that  there  is  a  growing  stock  of  ill-nature  in 
that  breast,  as  you  may  know  that  man  to  have  the  plague  upon 
whom  you  see  the  tokens. 

Having  thus  shown  you  from  whence  this  ill  quality  proceeds, 
pass  we  now  to  the 

IV.  Fourth  thing  proposed,  which  is  to  show,  those  ill  quali- 
ties that  inseparably  attend  ingratitude,  and  are  never  disjoined 
from  it. 

It  is  a  saying  common  in  use  and  true  in  observation,  that  the 
disposition  and  temper  of  a  man  may  be  gathered  as  well  from  his 
companion  or  associate  as  from  himself.  And  it  holds  in  qualities 
as  it  does  in  persons :  it  being  seldom  or  never  known,  that  any 
great  virtue  or  vice  went  alone ;  for  greatness  in  every  thing  will 
still  be  attended  on. 

How  black  and  base  a  vice  ingratitude  is  we  have  seen,  by  con- 
sidering it  both  in  its  own  nature  and  in  the  principle  from 
which  it  springs  ;  and  we  may  see  the  same  yet  more  fully  in 
those  vices  which  it  is  always  in  combination  with :  two  of  which 
I  shall  mention,  as  being  of  near  cognition  to  it,  and  constant  co- 
herence with  it.  The  first  of  which  is  pride  ;  and  the  second 
hard-heartedness,  or  want  of  compassion. 

1.  And  first,  for  pride.  This  is  of  such  intimate,  and  even 
essential  connexion  with  ingratitude,  that  the  actings  of  ingratitude 
seem    directly  resolvable  into   pride,   as   the  principal  reason 


OF  THE  ODIOUS  SIN  OF  INGRATITUDE. 


181 


and  cause  of  them.  The  original  ground  of  man's  obligation  to 
gratitude  was,  as  I  have  hinted,  from  this,  that  each  man  has  but 
a  limited  right  to  the  good  things  of  the  world ;  and  that  the 
natural  allowed  way  by  which  he  is  to  compass  the  possession  of 
these  things,  is  by  his  own  industrious  acquisition  of  them  ;  and, 
consequently,  when  any  good  is  dealt  forth  to  him  any  other  way 
than  by  his  own  labour,  he  is  accountable  to  the  person  who  dealt 
it  to  him,  as  for  a  thing  to  which  he  had  no  right  or  claim  by  any 
action  of  his  own  entitling  him  to  it. 

But  now,  pride  shuts  a  man's  eyes  against  all  this,  and  so  fills 
him  with  an  opinion  of  his  own  transcendent  worth,  that  he 
imagines  himself  to  have  a  right  to  all  things,  as  well  those  that 
are  the  effects  and  fruits  of  other  men's  labours  as  of  his  own. 
So  that,  if  any  advantage  accrues  to  him  by  the  liberality  and 
donation  of  his  neighbour,  he  looks  not  upon  it  as  a  matter  of 
free  undeserved  gift,  but  rather  as  a  just  homage  to  that  worth 
and  merit  which  he  conceives  to  be  in  himself,  and  to  which  all 
the  world  ought  to  become  tributary.  Upon  which  thought  no 
wonder  if  he  reckons  himself  wholly  unconcerned  to  acknow- 
ledge or  repay  any  good  that  he  receives.  For  while  the 
courteous  person  thinks  that  he  is  obliging  and  doing  such  a  one 
a  kindness,  the  proud  person  on  the  other  side,  accounts  him  to  be 
only  paying  a  debt.  His  pride  makes  him  even  worship  and 
idolize  himself:  and,  indeed,  every  proud,  ungrateful  man  has 
this  property  of  an  idol,  that  though  he  is  plied  with  never  so 
many  and  so  great  offerings,  yet  he  takes  no  notice  of  the  offerer 
at  all. 

Now  this  is  the  true  account  of  the  most  inward  movings  and 
reasonings  of  the  very  heart  and  soul  of  an  ungrateful  person  : 
so  that  you  may  rest  upon  this  as  a  proposition  of  an  eternal, 
unfailing  truth,  that  there  neither  is,  nor  ever  was,  any  person 
remarkably  ungrateful,  who  was  not  also  insufferably  proud ; 
nor,  convertible,  any  one  proud,  who  was  not  equally  ungrateful. 
For  as  snakes  breed  in  dunghills  not  singly,  but  in  knots,  so  in 
such  base  noisome  hearts,  you  shall  ever  see  pride  and  ingratitude 
indivisibly  wreathed  and  twisted  together.  Ingratitude  overlooks 
all  kindnesses,  but  it  is  because  pride  makes  it  carry  its  head 
so  high. 

See  the  greatest  examples  of  ingratitude  equally  notorious  for 
their  pride  and  ambition.  And  to  begin  with  the  top  and  father  of 
them  all,  the  devil  himself.  That  excellent  and  glorious  nature 
which  God  had  obliged  him  with,  could  not  prevent  his  in- 
gratitude and  apostacy,  when  his  pride  bid  him  aspire  to  an 
equality  with  his  maker,  and  say,  "  I  will  ascend,  and  be  like  the 
Most  High."  And  did  not  our  first  parents  write  exactly  after 
his  copy?  ingratitude  making  them  to  trample  upon  the  command 
because  pride  made  them  desire  to  be  as  gods,  and  to  brave  Omni- 
science itself  in  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil.    What  made 

Q 


182 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XI. 


that  ungrateful  wretch  Absalom  kick  at  all  the  kindnesses  of  his 
indulgent  father,  but  because  his  ambition  would  needs  be  finger- 
ing the  sceptre,  and  hoisting  him  into  his  father's  throne  ?  And  in 
the  courts  of  princes  is  there  any  thing  more  usual,  than  to  see 
those  that  have  been  raised  by  the  favour  and  interest  of  some 
great  minister,  to  trample  upon  the  steps  by  which  they  rose,  to 
rival  him  in  his  greatness,  and  at  length,  if  possible,  to  step  into 
his  place? 

In  a  word,  ingratitude  is  too  base  to  return  a  kindness,  and  too 
proud  to  regard  it :  much  like  the  tops  of  mountains,  barren  in- 
deed, but  yet  lofty  :  they  produce  nothing,  they  feed  nobody,  they 
clothe  nobody,  yet  are  high  and  stately,  and  look  down  upon  all  the 
world  about  them. 

3.  The  other  concomitant  of  ingratitude  is  hard-heartedness,  or 
want  of  compassion.  This,  at  first,  may  seem  to  have  no  great 
cognation  with  ingratitude  :  but  upon  a  due  inspection  into  the  na- 
ture of  that  ill  quality,  it  will  be  found  directly  to  follow  it,  if  not 
also  to  result  from  it. 

For  the  nature  of  ingratitude  being  founded  in  such  a  disposi- 
tion, as  encloses  all  a  man's  concerns  within  himself,  and  con- 
sequently gives  him  a  perfect  unconcernedness  in  all  things  not 
judged  by  him  immediately  to  relate  to  his  own  interest:  it  is  no 
wonder  if  the  same  temper  of  mind,  which  makes  a  man  unap- 
prehensive of  any  good  done  him  by  others,  makes  him  equally 
unapprehensive  and  insensible  of  any  evil  or  misery  suffered  by 
others ;  no  such  thought  ever  strikes  his  marble,  obdurate  heart, 
but  it  presently  flies  off  and  rebounds  from  it.  And  the  truth  is, 
it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  be  perfect  and  thorough-paced  in 
ingratitude,  till  he  has  shaken  off  all  fetters  of  pity  and  compas- 
sion. For  all  relenting  and  tenderness  of  heart  makes  a  man  but  a 
puny  in  this  sin  ;  it  spoils  the  growth,  and  cramps  the  last  and 
crowning  exploits  of  this  vice. 

Ingratitude,  indeed,  put  the  poinard  into  Brutus's  hand  ;  but 
it  was  want  of  compassion  which  thrust  it  into  Caesar's  heart. 
When  some  fond,  easy  fathers  think  fit  to  strip  themselves  before 
they  lie  down  to  their  long  sleep,  and  to  settle  their  whole  estates 
upon  their  sons,  has  it  not  been  too  frequently  seen,  that  the  father 
has  been  requited  with  want  and  beggary,  scorn  and  con- 
tempt? But  now,  could  bare  ingratitude,  think  we,  ever  have 
made  any  one  so  unnatural  and  diabolical,  had  not  cruelty  and 
want  of  pity  come  in  as  a  second  to  his  assistance,  and  cleared  the 
villain's  breast  of  all  remainders  of  humanity  ?  Is  it  not  this 
which  has  made  so  many  miserable  parents  even  curse  their  own 
bowels,  for  bringing  forth  children  that  seem  to  have  none  ?  Did 
not  this  make  Agrippina,  Nero's  mother,  cry  out  to  the  assassin 
sent  by  her  son  to  murder  her,  to  direct  his  swTord  to  her  belly,  as 
being  the  only  criminal  for  having  brought  forth  such  a  monster 
of  ingratitude  into  the  world  ?    And  to  give  you  yet  a  higher  in- 


OF  THE  ODIOUS  SIN  OF  INGRATITUDE. 


183 


stance  of  the  conjunction  of  these  two  vices,  since  nothing  could 
transcend  the  ingratitude  and  cruelty  of  Nero,  but  the  ingratitude 
and  cruelty  of  an  imperious  woman ;  when  Tullia,  daughter  of 
Servius  Tullius,  sixth  king  of  Rome,  having  married  Tarquinius 
Superbus,  and  put  him  first  upon  killing  her  father,  and  then  in- 
vading his  throne,  came  through  the  street  where  the  body  of  her 
father  lay  newly  murdered,  and  wallowing  in  his  blood,  she  com- 
manded her  trembling  coachman  to  drive  his  chariot  and  horses 
over  the  body  of  her  king  and  father  triumphantly,  in  the  face  of 
all  Rome  looking  upon  her  with  astonishment  and  detestation. 
Such  was  the  tenderness,  gratitude,  filial  affection,  and  good  nature 
of  this  weaker  vessel. 

And  then  for  instances  out  of  sacred  story  :  to  go  no  further 
than  this  of  Gideon.  Did  not  ingratitude  first  make  the  Israelites 
forget  the  kindness  of  the  father,  and  then  cruelty  make  them  im- 
brue their  hands  in  the  blood  of  his  sons?  Could  Pharaoh's  but- 
ler so  quickly  have  forgot  Joseph,  had  not  want  of  gratitude  to 
him  as  his  friend,  met  with  an  equal  want  of  compassion  to  him 
as  his  fellow-prisoner?  A  poor  innocent,  forlorn  stranger,  lan- 
guishing in  durance,  upon  the  false  accusations  of  a  lying,  in- 
solent, whorish  woman ! 

I  might  even  weary  you  with  examples  of  the  like  nature, 
both  sacred  and  civil,  all  of  them  representing  ingratitude,  as  it 
were,  sitting  in  its  throne,  with  pride  at  its  right  hand,  and  cruelty 
at  its  left ;  worthy  supporters  of  such  a  stately  quality,  such  a 
reigning  impiety. 

And  it  has  been  sometimes  observed,  that  persons  signally  and 
eminently  obliged,  yet  missing  of  the  utmost  of  their  greedy  de- 
signs in  swallowing  both  gifts  and  giver  too,  instead  of  thanks  for 
received  kindnesses,  have  betaken  themselves  to  barbarous  threat- 
enings  for  defeat  of  their  insatiable  expectations. 

Upon  the  whole  matter,  we  may  firmly  conclude,  that  ingrati- 
tude and  compassion  never  cohabit  in  the  same  breast.  Which 
remark  I  do  here  so  much  insist  upon,  to  show  the  superlative 
malignity  of  this  vice,  and  the  baseness  of  the  mind  in  which  it 
dwells :  for  we  may  with  great  confidence  and  equal  truth  affirm, 
that  since  there  was  such  a  thing  as  mankind  in  the  world,  there 
never  was  any  heart  truly  great  and  generous,  that  was  not  also 
tender  and  compassionate.  It  is  this  noble  quality,  that  makes 
all  men  to  be  of  one  kind ;  for  every  man  would  be,  as  it  were, 
a  distinct  species  to  himself,  were  there  no  sympathy  amongst 
individuals. 

And  thus  I  have  done  with  the  fourth  thing  proposed,  and 
shown  the  two  vices  that  inseparably  attend  ingratitude.  And 
now,  if  falsehood  also  should  chance  to  strike  in  as  the  third,  and 
make  up  the  triumvirate  of  its  attendants,  so  that  ingratitude, 
pride,  cruelty,  and  falsehood  should  all  meet  together,  and  join 
forces  in  the  same  person ;  as  not  only  very  often,  but  for  the 


184 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XI, 


most  part  they  do ;  in  this  case,  if  the  devils  themselves  should 
take  bodies,  and  come  and  live  amongst  us,  they  could  not  be 
greater  plagues  and  grievances  to  society  than  such  persons. 

From  what  has  been  said,  let  no  man  ever  think  to  meet  in- 
gratitude single  and  alone.  It  is  one  of  those  "  grapes  of  gall  " 
mentioned  by  Moses,  Deut.  xxxii.  32,  and  therefore  expect  always 
to  find  it  one  of  a  cluster.    I  proceed  now  to  the 

V.  Fifth  and  last  thing  proposed,  which  is,  to  draw  some  useful 
consequences ,  by  way  of  application  from  the  premises.  As, 

1.  Never  enter  into  a  league  of  friendship  with  an  ungrateful 
person  :  that,  is,  plant  not  thy  friendship  upon  a  dunghill ;  it  is 
too  noble  a  plant  for  so  base  a  soil.  Friendship  consists  properly 
in  mutual  offices,  and  a  generous  strife  in  alternate  acts  of  kind- 
ness. But  he  who  does  a  kindness  to  an  ungrateful  person 
sets  his  seal  to  a  flint,  and  sows  his  seed  upon  the  sand  ;  upon 
the  former  he  makes  no  impression,  and  from  the  latter  he  finds 
no  production. 

The  only  voice  of  ingratitude  is,  Give,  give ;  but  when  the  gift 
is  once  received,  then,  like  the  swine  at  his  trough,  it  is  silent  and 
insatiable.  In  a  word,  the  ungrateful  person  is  a  monster  which 
is  all  throat  and  belly  ;  a  kind  of  thoroughfare,  or  common  shore, 
for  the  good  things  of  the  world  to  pass  into  ;  and  of  whom, 
in  respect  of  all  kindnesses  conferred  on  him,  may  be  verified 
that  observation  of  the  lions'  den  ;  before  which  appeared  the 
footsteps  of  many  that  had  gone  in  thither,  but  no  prints  of  any 
that  ever  came  out  thence.  The  ungrateful  person  is  the  only 
thing  in  nature,  for  which  nobody  living  is  the  better.  He  lives 
to  himself,  and  subsists  by  the  good  nature  of  others,  of  which  he 
himself  has  not  the  least  grain.  He  is  a  mere  encroachment  upon 
society,  and  consequently  ought  to  be  thrust  out  of  the  world,  as 
a  pest,  and  a  prodigy,  and  a  creature  of  the  devil's  making,  and 
not  of  God's. 

2.  As  a  man  tolerably  discreet  ought  by  no  means  to  attempt 
the  making  of  such  a  one  his  friend  ;  so  neither  is  he,  in  the  next 
place,  to  presume  to  think  that  he  shall  be  able  so  much  as  to  alter 
or  meliorate  the  humour  of  an  ungrateful  person  by  any  acts  of 
kindness,  though  never  so  frequent,  never  so  obliging. 

Philosophy  will  teach  the  learned,  and  experience  may  teach 
all,  that  it  is  a  thing  hardly  feasible.  For  love  such  a  one,  and 
he  shall  despise  you  :  commend  him,  and,  as  occasion  serves,  he 
shall  revile  you  :  give  to  him,  and  he  shall  but  laugh  at  your 
easiness  :  save  his  life,  but  when  you  have  done,  look  to  your 
own. 

The  greatest  favours  to  such  a  one  are  but  like  the  motion  of 
a  ship  upon  the  waves  ;  they  leave  no  trace,  no  sign  behind  them  ; 
they  neither  soften,  nor  win  upon  him  ;  they  neither  melt,  noi 
endear  him  ;  but  leave  him  as  hard,  as  rugged,  and  as  uncon- 


t 


OF  THE  ODIOUS  SIN*  OF  INGRATITUDE.  185 

cemed  as  ever.  All  kindnesses  descend  upon  such  a  temper,  as 
showers  of  rain  or  rivers  of  fresh  water  falling  into  the  main  sea : 
the  sea  swallows  them  all,  but  is  not  at  all  changed  or  sweetened 
by  them.  I  may  trulv  say  of  the  mind  of  an  ungrateful  person, 
that  it  is  kindness-proof.  It  is  impenetrable,  unconquerable ; 
unconquerable  by  that  which  conquers  all  things  else,  even  by 
love  itself.  Flints  may  be  melted,  we  see  it  daily,  but  an  un- 
grateful heart  cannot  ;  no,  not  by  the  strongest  and  the  noblest 
flame.  After  all  your  attempts,  all  your  experiments,  for  any 
thins:  that  man  can  do,  he  that  is  ungrateful  will  be  ungrateful 
still.  And  the  reason  is  manifest ;  for  you  may  remember 
that  I  told  you,  that  ingratitude  sprang  from  a  principle  of  ill- 
nature  ;  which  being  a  thing  founded  in  such  a  certain  constitu- 
tion of  blood  and  spirit,  as,  being  born  with  a  man  into  the  world, 
and  upon  that  account  called  nature,  shall  prevent  all  remedies 
that  can  be  applied  by  education,  and  leaves  such  a  bias  upon  the 
mind,  as  is  beforehand  with  all  instruction. 

So  that  vou  shall  seldom  or  never  meet  with  an  ungrateful 
person,  but  if  you  look  backward,  and  trace  him  up  to  his 
original,  you  will  find  that  he  was  bora  so  ;  and  if  you  could 
look  forward  enough,  it  is  a  thousand  to  one,  but  you  would  find 
that  he  also  dies  so  :  for  you  shall  never  light  upon  an  ill-natured 
man,  who  was  not  also  an  ill-natured  child  ;  and  gave  several 
testimonies  of  his  being  so,  to  discerning  persons,  long  before 
the  use  of  his  reason. 

The  thread  that  nature  spins  is  seldom  broken  off  by  any  thing 
but  death.  I  do  not  by  this  limit  the  operation  of  God's  grace, 
for  that  may  do  wonders  ;  but  humanly  speaking,  and  according 
to  the  method  of  the  world  and  the  little  correctives  supplied  by 
art  and  discipline,  it  seldom  fails  but  an  ill  principle  has  its  course, 
and  nature  makes  good  its  blow.  And  therefore,  where  ingrati- 
tude begins  remarkably  to  show  itself,  he  surely  judges  most 
wisely,  who  takes  the  alarm  betimes  :  and  arguing  the  fountain 
from  the  stream,  concludes  that  there  is  ill-nature  at  the  bottom ; 
and  so  reducing  his  judgment  into  practice,  timely  withdraws  his 
frustraneous,  baffled  kindnesses,  and  sees  the  follv  of  endeavour- 
ing to  stroke  a  tiger  into  a  lamb,  or  to  court  an  Ethiopian  out  of 
his  colour. 

3.  In  the  third  and  last  place.  Wheresoever  you  see  a  man 
notoriously  ungrateful,  rest  assured  that  there  is  no  true  sense  of 
religion  in  that  person.  You  know  the  apostle's  argument,  in 
1  John  iv.  20,  He  who  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath 
seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen  ?"  So  bv  an 
exact  parity  of  reason,  we  may  argue  :  If  a  man  has  no  sense  of 
those  kindnesses  that  pass  upon  him,  from  one  like  himself, 
whom  he  sees  and  knows,  and  converses  with  sensibly ;  how 
much  less  shall  his  heart  be  affected  with  the  grateful  sense  of 
his  favours,  whom  he  converses  with  only  by  imperfect  specula- 

Vol.  I. — 24  Q  2 


186 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XI. 


tions,  by  the  discourses  of  reason,  or  the  discoveries  of  faith ; 
neither  of  which  equal  the  quick  and  lively  impressions  of  sense  ? 
If  the  apostle's  reasoning  was  good  and  concluding,  I  am  sure  this 
must  be  unavoidable. 

But  the  thing  is  too  evident  to  need  any  proof.  For  shall 
that  man  pass  for  a  proficient  in  Christ's  school,  who  would  have 
been  exploded  in  the  school  of  Zeno  or  Epictetus  ?  Or  shall  he 
attend  to  religious  attainments,  who  is  defective  and  short  in 
moral  ?  which  yet  are  but  the  rudiments,  the  beginnings,  and 
first  draught  of  religion  ;  as  religion  is  the  perfection,  the  re- 
finement, and  the  sublimation  of  morality :  so  that  it  still  pre- 
supposes it,  it  builds  upon  it ;  and  grace  never  adds  the  super- 
structure, where  virtue  has  not  laid  the  foundation.  There  may 
be  virtue,  indeed,  and  yet  no  grace  ;  but  grace  is  never  without 
virtue :  and  therefore,  though  gratitude  does  not  infer  grace,  it  is 
certain  that  ingratitude,  does  exclude  it. 

Think  not  to  put  God  off  by  frequenting  prayers,  and  sermons, 
and  sacraments,  while  thy  brother  has  an  action  against  thee  in  the 
court  of  heaven ;  an  action  of  debt,  of  that  clamorous  and 
great  debt  of  gratitude  :  rather  as  our  Saviour  commands, 
"  Leave  thy  gift  upon  the  altar,"  and  first  go  and  clear  accounts 
with  thy  brother.  God  scorns  a  gift  from  him  who  has  not  paid 
his  debts.  Every  ungrateful  person,  in  the  sight  of  God  and 
man,  is  a  thief:  and  let  him  not  make  the  altar  his  receiver. 
Where  there  is  no  charity,  it  is  certain  there  can  be  no  religion : 
and  can  that  man  be  charitable,  who  is  not  so  much  as  just  ? 

In  every  benefaction  between  man  and  man,  man  is  only  the 
dispenser,  but  God  the  benefactor;  and  therefore,  let  all  un- 
grateful ones  know,  that  where  gratitude  is  the  debt,  God  him- 
self is  the  chief  creditor;  who,  though  he  causes  "his  sun  to. 
shine  and  his  rain  to  fall  upon  the  evil  and  unthankful  in  this 
world,"  has  another  kind  of  reward  for  their  unthankfulness  in 
the  next. 

To  which  God,  the  great  searcher  and  judge  of  hearts,  and 
rewarder  of  men  according  to  their  deeds,  be  rendered  and 
ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion, 
both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


187 


SERMON  XII. 

OF    THE    NATURE,    MALIGNITY,    AND    PERNICIOUS    EFFECTS  OF 
FALSEHOOD  AND  LYING. 

[Preached  at  Christ  Church,  Oxon,  before  the  University,  October  14,  1688.] 

Prov.  xii.  22. 

Lying  lips  are  abomination  to  tJie  Lord. 

I  am  very  sensible  that  by  discoursing  of  lies  and  falsehood, 
which  I  have  pitched  upon  for  my  present  subject,  I  must  needs 
fall  into  a  very  large  common  place  ;  though  yet,  not  by  half  so 
large  and  common  as  the  practice :  nothing  in  nature  being  so 
universally  decried,  and  withal  so  universally  practised,  as  false- 
hood. So  that  most  of  those  things,  that  have  the  mightiest  and 
most  controlling  influence  upon  the  affairs  and  course  of  the 
world,  are  neither  better  nor  worse  than  downright  lies.  For 
what  is  common  fame,  which  sounds  from  all  quarters  of  the 
world,  and  resounds  back  to  them  again,  but  generally  a  loud, 
rattling,  impudent,  overbearing  lie?  What  are  most  of  the  his- 
tories of  the  world,  but  lies ;  lies  immortalized,  and  consigned 
over  as  a  perpetual  abuse  and  flam  upon  posterity?  What  are 
most  of  the  promises  of  the  world,  but  lies  ?  of  which  we  need 
no  other  proof,  but  our  own  experience.  And  what  are  most  of 
the  oaths  in  the  world  but  lies  ?  and  such  as  need  rather  a  pardon 
for  being  taken,  than  a  dispensation  from  being  kept.  And 
lastly,  what  are  all  the  religions  of  the  world,  except  Judaism 
and  Christianity,  but  lies?  And  even  in  Christianity  itself,  are 
there  not  those  who  teach,  warrant,  and  defend  lying ;  and  scarce 
use  the  bible  for  any  other  purpose,  but  to  swear  upon  it,  and  to 
lie  against  it  ? 

Thus  a  mighty,  governing  lie  goes  round  the  world,  and  ha? 
almost  banished  truth  out  of  it ;  and  so  reigning  triumphantly  in 
its  stead,  is  the  true  source  of  most  of  those  confusions  and  dire 
calamities  that  infest  and  plague  the  universe.  For  look  over 
them  all,  and  you  shall  find,  that  the  greatest  annoyance  and  dis- 
turbance of  mankind  has  been  from  one  of  these  two  things,  force 
or  fraud :  of  which,  as  boisterous  and  violent  a  thing  as  force  is, 
yet  it  rarely  achieves  any  thing  considerable,  but  under  the  con- 
duct of  fraud.  Sleight  of  hand  has  done  that  which  force  of  hand 
could  never  do. 

But  wThy  do  we  speak  of  hands  ?  It  is  the  tongue  that  drives 
the  world  before  it.  The  tongue,  and  the  lying  lip,  which  there 
is  no  fence  against :  for  when  that  is  the  weapon,  a  man  may 


188 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[sEHM.  XII. 


strike  where  he  cannot  reach  ;  and  a  word  shall  do  execution  both 
further  and  deeper  than  the  mightiest  blow.  For  the  hand  can 
hardly  lift  up  itself  high  enough  to  strike,  but  it  must  be  seen, 
so  that  it  warns  while  it  threatens :  but  a  false,  insidious  tongue 
may  whisper  a  lie  so  close  and  low,  that  though  you  have  ears  to 
hear,  yet  you  shall  not  hear ;  and  indeed,  we  generally  come  to 
know  it,  not  by  hearing,  but  by  feeling  what  it  says. 

A  man,  perhaps,  casts  his  eye  this  way  and  that  way,  and  looks 
round  about  him  to  spy  out  his  enemy,  and  to  defend  himself; 
but,  alas!  the  fatal  mischief,  that  would  trip  up  his  heels,  is  all 
the  while  under  them.  It  works  invisibly,  and  beneath ;  and  the 
shocks  of  an  earthquake,  we  know,  are  much  more  dreadful  than 
the  highest  and  loudest  blusters  of  a  storm.  For  there  may  be 
some  shelter  against  the  violence  of  the  one,  but  no  security 
against  the  hollo wness  of  the  other,  which  never  opens  its  bosom, 
but  for  a  killing  embrace.  The  bowels  of  the  earth  in  such 
cases,  and  the  mercies  of  the  false  in  all,  being  equally  without 
compassion. 

Upon  the  whole  matter,  it  is  hard  to  assign  any  one  thing,  but 
lying,  which  God  and  man  so  unanimously  join  in  the  hatred  of ; 
and  it  is  as  hard  to  tell,  whether  it  does  a  greater  dishonour  to 
God,  or  mischief  to  man ;  it  is  certainly  an  abomination  to  both ; 
and  I  hope  to  make  it  appear  such  in  the  following  discourse: 
though  I  must  confess  myself  very  unable  to  speak  to  the  utmost 
latitude  of  this  subject ;  and  I  thank  God  that  I  am  so. 

Now  the  words  of  the  text  are  a  plain,  entire,  categorical  pro- 
position ;  and  therefore  I  shall  not  go  about  to  darken  them  by 
any  needless  explication,  but  shall  immediately  cast  the  prosecution 
of  them  under  these  three  following  particulars  :  as, 

I.  I  shall  inquire  into  the  nature  of  a  lie,  and  the  proper 
essential  malignity  of  all  falsehood. 

II.  I  shall  show  the  pernicious  effects  of  it.  And, 

III.  Lastly,  I  shall  lay  before  you  the  rewards  and  punish- 
ments that  will  certainly  attend,  or  at  least  follow  it. 

Every  one  of  which,  I  suppose,  and  much  more  all  of  them 
together,  will  afford  arguments,  more  than  sufficient  to  prove, 
though  it  were  no  part  of  holy  scripture,  that  "  lying  lips  are  an 
abomination  to  the  Lord." 

And  first,  for  the  first  of  these : 

1.  What  a  lie  is,  and  wherein  the  nature  of  it  does  consist.  A 
lie  is  properly  an  outward  signification  of  something  contrary  to, 
or  at  least  beside  the  inward  sense  of  the  mind ;  so  that  when 
one  thing  is  signified  or  expressed,  and  the  same  thing  not  meant 
or  intended,  that  is  properly  a  lie. 

And  forasmuch  as  God  has  endued  man  with  a  power  or  facul- 
ty to  institute  or  appoint  signs  of  his  thoughts;  and  that,  by 
virtue  hereof,  he  can  appoint  not  only  words  but  also  things, 


OF  THE  BASE  SINS  OF  FALSEHOOD  AND  LYING.  189 

actions,  and  gestures,  to  be  signs  of  the  inward  thoughts  and 
conceptions  of  his  mind,  it  is  evident,  that  he  may  as  really  lie 
and  deceive  by  actions  and  gestures,  as  he  can  by  words :  foras- 
much as,  in  the  nature  of  them,  they  are  as  capable  of  being 
made  signs ;  and  consequently,  of  being  as  much  abused  and 
misapplied  as  the  other:  though,  for  distinction  sake,  a  deceiving 
by  words  is  commonly  called  a  lie,  and  a  deceiving  by  actions, 
gestures,  or  behaviour,  is  called  simulation,  or  hypocrisy. 

The  nature  of  a  lie,  therefore,  consists  in  this,  that  it  is  a  false 
signification  knowingly  and  voluntarily  used  ;  in  which  the  sign 
expressing  is  noways  agreeing  with  the  thought  or  conception  ot 
the  mind  pretended  to  be  thereby  expressed.  For  words  signify 
not  immediately  and  primely  things  themselves,  but  the  concep- 
tions of  the  mind  concerning  things;  and  therefore,  if  there  be 
an  agreement  between  our  words  and  our  thoughts,  we  do  not 
speak  falsely,  though  it  sometimes  so  falls  out,  that  our  words 
agree  not  with  the  things  themselves :  upon  which  account, 
though  in  so  speaking  we  offend  indeed  against  truth,  yet  we 
offend  not  properly  by  falsehood,  which  is  a  speaking  against  our 
thoughts  ;  but  by  rashness,  which  is  an  affirming  or  denying,  be- 
fore we  have  sufficiently  informed  ourselves  of  the  real  and  true 
estate  of  those  things  whereof  we  affirm  or  deny. 

And  thus  having  shown  what  a  lie  is,  and  wherein  it  does  con- 
sist ;  the  next  consideration  is,  of  the  lawfulness  or  unlawfulness 
of  it.  And  in  this  we  have  but  too  sad  and  scandalous  an  in- 
stance both  of  the  corruption  and  weakness  of  man's  reason,  and 
of  the  strange  bias  that  it  still  receives  from  interest,  that  such  a 
case  as  this,  both  with  philosophers  and  divines,  heathens  and 
Christians,  should  be  held  disputable. 

Plato  accounted  it  lawful  for  statesmen  and  governors,  and  so 
did  Cicero  and  Plutarch ;  and  the  Stoics,  as  some  say,  reckoned 
it  amongst  the  arts  and  perfections  of  a  wise  man,  to  lie  dexter- 
ously, in  due  time  and  place.  And  for  some  of  the  ancient 
doctors  of  the  Christian  church,  such  as  Origen,  Clemens,  Alex- 
andrinus,  Tertullian,  Lactantius,  and  Chrysostom  ;  and  generally, 
all  before  St.  Austin,  several  passages  have  fallen  from  them, 
that  speak  but  too  favourably  of  this  thing.  So  that  Paul  Lay- 
man, a  Romish  casuist,  says,  that  it  is  a  truth  but  lately  known, 
and  received  in  the  world,  that  a  lie  is  absolutely  sinful  and  un- 
lawful. I  suppose  he  means,  that  part  of  the  wTorld  where  the 
scriptures  are  not  read,  and  where  men  care  not  to  know  what 
they  are  not  willing  to  practice. 

But  then,  for  the  mitigation  of  what  has  proceeded  from  these 
great  men,  we  must  take  in  that  known  and  celebrated  division 
of  a  lie  into  those  three  several  kinds  of  it :  as, 

1.  The  pernicious  lie,  uttered  for  the  hurt  or  disadvantage  of 
our  neighbour.  2.  The  officious  lie,  uttered  for  our  own,  or  our 
neighbour's  advantage.     And  3,  and  lastly,  The  ludicrous  and 


190 


DR.   SOUTH 's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XII. 


jocose  lie  uttered  by  way  of  jest,  and  only  for  mirth's  sake,  in 
common  converse. 

Now  for  the  first  of  these,  which  is  the  pernicious  lie  ;  it  was 
and  is  universally  condemned  by  all :  but  the  other  two  have 
found  some  patronage  from  the  writings  of  those  forementioned 
authors.  The  reason  of  which  seems  to  be,  that  those  persons 
did  not  estimate  the  lawfulness  or  unlawfulness  of  a  lie,  from 
the  intrinsic  nature  of  the  thing  itself,  but  either  from  those  ex- 
ternal effects  that  it  produced,  or  from  those  ends  to  which  it 
was  directed;  which,  accordingly  as  they  proved  either  helpful 
or  hurtful,  innocent  or  offensive,  so  the  lie  was  reputed  either 
lawful  or  unlawful.  And  therefore,  since  a  man  was  helped  by 
an  officious  lie,  and  not  hurt  by  a  jocose,  both  of  these  came  to 
be  esteemed  lawful,  and  in  some  cases  laudable. 

But  the  schoolmen  and  casuists  having  too  much  philosophy  to 
go  about  to  clear  a  lie  from  that  intrinsic  inordination  and  devia- 
tion from  right  reason  inherent  in  the  nature  of  it,  and  yet  withal 
unwilling  to  rob  the  world,  and  themselves  especially,  of  so  sweet 
a  morsel  of  liberty,  held  that  a  lie  was  indeed  absolutely  and 
universally  sinful ;  but  then  they  held  also,  that  only  the  per- 
nicious lie  was  a  mortal  sin,  and  the  other  two  were  only  venial. 
It  can  be  no  part  of  my  business  here  to  overthrow  this  distinc- 
tion, and  to  show  the  nullity  of  it ;  which  has  been  solidly  and 
sufficiently  done  by  most  of  our  polemic  writers  of  the  protestant 
church.  But  at  present  I  shall  only  take  this  their  confession, 
that  every  lie  is  sinful,  and  consequently  unlawful  ;  and  if  it  be 
a  sin,  I  shall  suppose  it  already  proved  to  my  hands  to  be,  what 
all  sin  essentially  is  and  must  be,  mortal.  So  that  thus  far  have 
we  gone,  and  this  point  have  we  gained,  that  it  is  absolutely  and 
universally  unlawful  to  lie  or  to  falsify. 

Let  us  now,  in  the  next  place,  inquire  from  whence  this  un- 
lawfulness springs,  and  upon  what  it  is  grounded.  To  which  I 
answer ;  that  upon  the  principles  of  natural  reason,  the  unlaw- 
fulness of  lying  is  grounded  upon  this,  that  a  lie  is  properly  a 
sort  or  species  of  injustice,  and  a  violation  of  the  right  of  that 
person  to  whom  the  false  speech  is  directed ;  for  all  speaking,  or 
signification  of  one's  mind,  implies,  in  the  nature  of  it,  an  act  or 
address  of  one  man  to  another ;  it  being  evident,  that  no  man, 
though  he  does  speak  false,  can  be  said  to  lie  to  himself. 

Now  to  show  what  this  right  is,  we  must  know,  that  in  the 
beginnings  and  first  establishments  of  speech,  there  was  an  implicit 
compact  amongst  men,  founded  upon  common  use  and  consent, 
that  such  and  such  words  or  voices,  actions  or  gestures,  should  be 
means  or  signs,  whereby  they  would  express  or  convey  their 
thought  one  to  another ;  and  that  men  should  be  obliged  to  use 
them  for  that  purpose  ;  forasmuch  as,  without  such  an  obligation, 
those  signs  could  not  be  effectual  for  such  an  end.  From  which 
compact  there  arising  an  obligation  upon  every  one  so  to  convey 


OF  THE  BASE  SINS  OF  FALSEHOOD  AND  LYING.  191 

his  meaning,  there  accrues  also  a  right  to  every  one,  by  the  same 
signs,  to  judge  of  the  sense  or  meaning  of  the  person  so  obliged 
to  express  himself :  and,  consequently,  if  these  signs  are  applied 
and  used  by  him  so  as  not  to  signify  his  meaning,  the  right  of 
the  person,  to  whom  he  was  obliged  so  to  have  done,  is  hereby 
violated ;  and  the  man,  by  being  deceived,  and  kept  ignorant 
of  his  neighbour's  meaning,  where  he  ought  to  have  known  it, 
is  so  far  deprived  of  the  benefit  of  any  intercourse  or  converse 
with  him. 

From  hence  therefore  we  see,  that  the  original  reason  of  the 
unlawfulness  of  lying  or  deceiving,  is,  that  it  carries  with  it  an 
act  of  injustice,  and  a  violation  of  the  right  of  him  to  whom  we 
were  obliged  to  signify  or  impart  our  minds,  if  we  spoke  to  him 
at  all. 

But  then  we  must  observe  also,  which  I  noted  at  first,  that  as 
it  is  in  man's  power  to  institute  not  only  words,  but  also  things, 
actions,  or  gestures,  to  be  the  means  whereby  he  would  signify 
and  express  his  mind  ;  so,  on  the  other  side,  those  voices,  actions, 
or  gestures,  which  men  have  not  by  any  compact  agreed  to  make 
the  instruments  of  conveying  their  thoughts  one  to  another,  are 
not  the  proper  instruments  of  deceiving,  so  as  to  denominate  the 
person  using  them  a  liar  or  deceiver,  though  the  person,  to  whom 
they  are  addressed,  takes  occasion  from  thence  to  form  in  his 
mind  a  false  apprehension  or  belief  of  the  thoughts  of  those  who 
use  such  voices,  actions,  or  gestures  towards  him.  I  say,  in  this 
case,  the  person  using  these  things  cannot  be  said  to  deceive ; 
since  all  deception  is  a  misapplying  of  those  signs,  which,  by 
compact  or  institution,  were  made  the  means  of  men's  signifying 
or  conveying  their  thoughts;  but  here,  a  man  only  does  those 
things,  from  which  another  takes  occasion  to  deceive  himself: 
which  one  consideration  will  solve  most  of  those  difficulties  that 
are  usually  started  on  this  subject. 

But  yet  this  I  do  and  must  grant,  that  though  it  be  not  against 
strict  justice  or  truth  for  a  man  to  do  those  things  which  he 
might  otherwise  lawfully  do,  albeit  his  neighbour  does  take  occa- 
sion from  thence  to  conceive  in  his  mind  a  false  belief,  and  so  to 
deceive  himself ;  yet  Christian  charity  will,  in  many  cases, 
restrain  a  man  here  too,  and  prohibit  him  to  use  his  own  right 
and  liberty,  where  it  may  turn  considerably  to  his  neighbour's 
prejudice.  For  herein  is  the  excellency  of  charity  seen,  that  the 
charitable  man  not  only  does  no  evil  himself,  but  that,  to  the 
utmost  of  his  power,  he  also  hinders  any  evil  from  being  done 
even  by  another. 

And  as  wre  have  shown  and  proved  that  lying  and  deceiving 
stand  condemned  upon  the  principles  of  natural  justice,  and  the 
eternal  law  of  right  reason;  so  are  the  same  much  more  con- 
demned, and  that  with  the  sanction  of  the  highest  penalties,  by 
the  law  of  Christianity,  which  is  eminently  and  transcendent!/ 


192 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XII. 


called  the  truth,  and  the  word  of  truth ;  and  in  nothing  more 
surpasses  all  the  doctrines  and  religions  in  the  world,  than  in 
this,  that  it  enjoins  the  clearest,  the  openest,  and  the  sincerest 
dealing,  both  in  words  and  actions;,  and  is  the  rigidest  exacter 
of  truth  in  all  our  behaviour,  of  any  other  doctrine  or  institution 
whatsoever. 

And  thus  much  for  the  first  general  thing  proposed,  which  was, 
to  inquire  into  the  nature  of  a  lie,  and  the  proper,  essential 
malignity  of  all  falsehood.    I  proceed  now  to  the 

II.  Which  is  to  show  the  pernicious  effects  of  it.  Some  of  the 
chief  and  most  remarkable  of  which  are  these  that  follow :  as, 

L  First  of  all,  it  was  this  that  introduced  sin  into  the  world. 
For  how  came  our  first  parents  to  sin,  and  to  lose  their  primitive 
innocence  ?  Why,  they  were  deceived,  and  by  the  subtlety  of 
the  devil  brought  to  believe  a  lie.  And  indeed  deceit  is  of  the 
very  essence  and  nature  of  sin,  there  being  no  sinful  action,  but 
there  is  a  lie  wrapped  up  in  the  bowels  of  it.  For  sin  prevails 
upon  the  soul  by  representing  that  as  suitable  and  desirable,  that 
really  is  not  so.  And  no  man  is  ever  induced  to  sin,  but  by  a 
persuasion,  that  he  shall  find  some  good  and  happiness  in  it,  which 
he  had  not  before.  The  wages  that  sin  bargains  with  the  sinner 
to  serve  it  for,  are  life,  pleasure,  and  profit;  but  the  wages  it 
pays  him  with,  are  death,  torment,  and  destruction.  He  that 
would  understand  the  falsehood  and  deceit  of  sin  thoroughly, 
must  compare  its  promises  and  its  payments  together. 

And  as  the  devil  first  brought  sin  into  the  world  by  a  lie, 
being  equally  the  base  original  of  both,  so  he  still  propagates  and 
promotes  it  by  the  same.  The  devil  reigns  over  none  but  those 
whom  he  first  deceives.  Geographers  and  historians,  dividing 
the  habitable  world  into  thirty  parts,  give  us  this  account  of 
them :  that  but  five  of  those  thirty  are  Christian ;  and  for  the 
rest,  six  of  them  are  Jew  and  Mahometan,  and  the  remaining  nine- 
teen perfectly  heathen ;  all  which  he  holds  and  governs  by  possess- 
ing them  with  a  lie,  and  bewitching  them  with  a  false  religion. 
Like  the  moon  and  the  stars,  he  rules  by  night ;  and  his  kingdom, 
even  in  this  world,  is  perfectly  a  kingdom  of  darkness.  And 
therefore  our  Saviour,  who  came  to  dethrone  the  devil,  and  to 
destroy  sin,  did  it  by  being  "the  light  of  the  world,"  and  by 
"  bearing  witness  to  the  truth."  For  so  far  as  truth  gets  ground 
in  the  world,  so  far  sin  loses  it.  Christ  saves  the  world  by 
undeceiving  it,  and  sanctifies  the  will  by  first  enlightening  the 
understanding. 

2.  A  second  effect  of  lying  and  falsehood  is  all  that  misery  and 
calamity  that  befalls  mankind.  For  the  proof  of  which,  we  need 
go  no  further  than  the  former  consideration ;  for  sorrow  being 
the  natural  and  direct  effect  of  sin,  that  which  first  brought  sin 
into  the  world,  must  by  necessary  consequence  bring  in  sorrow 


OF  THE  BASE  SINS  OF  FALSEHOOD  AND  LYING. 


193 


too.  Shame  and  pain,  poverty  and  sickness,  yea,  death  and  hell 
itself,  are  all  of  tnem  but  the  trophies  of  those  fatal  conquests, 
got  by  that  grand  impostor  the  devil  over  the  deluded  sons  of 
men.  And  hardly  can  any  example  be  produced  of  a  man  in 
extreme  misery,  who  was  not  one  way  or  other  first  deceived 
into  it.  For  have  not  the  greatest  slaughters  of  armies  been 
effected  by  stratagem?  and  have  not  the  fairest  estates  been 
destroyed  by  suretiship  ?  In  both  of  which  there  is  a  fallacy,  and 
the  man  is  overreached,  before  he  is  overthrown. 

What  betrayed  and  delivered  the  poor  old  prophet  into  the 
lion's  mouth,  1  Kings  xiii.,  but  the  mouth  of  a  false  prophet, 
much  the  crueller  and  more  remorseless  of  the  two  ?  How  came 
John  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague  to  be  so  cruelly  and  basely 
used  by  the  council  of  Constance,  these  ecclesiastical  commis- 
sioners of  the  court  of  Rome?  Why,  they  promised  those 
innocent  men  a  safe  conduct,  who  thereupon  took  them  at  their 
word,  and  accordingly  were  burnt  alive  for  trusting  a  pack  of 
perfidious  wretches,  who  regarded  their  own  word  as  little  as  they 
did  God's.* 

And  how  came  so  many  bonfires  to  be  made  in  queen  Mary's 
days  ?  WThy,  she  had  abused  and  deceived  her  people  with  lies, 
promising  them  the  free  exercise  of  their  religion  before  she  got 
into  the  throne ;  and  when  she  was  once  in,  she  performed  her 
promise  to  them  at  the  stake.  And  I  know  no  security  we  had 
from  seeing  the  same  again  in  our  days,  but  one  or  two  procla- 
mations forbidding  bonfires.  Some  sorts  of  promises  are  edged 
tools,  and  it  is  dangerous  laying  hold  on  them. 

But  to  pass  from  thence  to  fanatic  treachery,  that  is,  from  one 
twin  to  the  other.  How  came  such  multitudes  of  our  own 
nation,  at  the  beginning  of  that  monstrous  (but  still  surviving 
and  successful)  rebellion,  in  the  year  1641,  to  be  spunged  of  their 
plate  and  money,  their  rings  and  jewels,  for  the  carrying  on  of 
the  schismatical,  dissenting,  king-killing  cause  ?  Why,  next  to 
their  own  love  of  being  cheated,  it  was  the  public,  or  rather  pros- 
titute faith  of  a  company  of  faithless  miscreants  that  drew  them 
in,  and  deceived  them.  And  how  came  so  many  thousands  to 
fight  and  die  in  the  same  rebellion  ?  Why,  they  were  deceived 
into  it .  by  those  spiritual  trumpeters,  who  followed  them  with 
continual  alarms  of  damnation,  if  they  did  not  venture  life,  for- 
tune, and  all,  in  that  which  wickedly  and  devilishly  those  impos- 
tors called  the  cause  of  God.  So  that  I  myself  have  heard  onef 
say,  whose  quarters  have  since  hung  about  that  city,  where  he 
first  had  been  deceived,  that  he,  with  many  more,  went  to 

*  Of  which  last  see  an  instance  in  the  13th  session  of  this  council,  in  which  it  decrees, 
with  a  non  obstante  to  Christ's  express  institution  of  the  blessed  eucharist  in  both  kinds, 
that  the  contrary  custom  and  practice  of  receiving  it  only  in  one  kind,  ought  to  be  ac- 
counted and  observed  as  a  law ;  and  that,  if  the  priest  should  administer  it  otherwise,  ho 
was  to  be  excommunicated. 

t  Colonel  Axtell. 

Vol.  L— 25  R 


194 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XII. 


that  execrable  war  with  such  a  controlling  horror  upon  their 
spirits,  from  those  sermons,*  that  they  verily  believed  they 
should  have  been  accursed  by  God  for  ever,  if  they  had  not  acted 
their  part  in  that  dismal  tragedy,  and  heartily  done  the  devil's 
work,  being  so  effectually  called  and  commanded  to  it  in  God's 
name. 

Infinite  would  it  be  to  pursue  all  instances  of  this  nature :  but 
consider  those  grand  agents  and  lieutenants  of  the  devil,  by 
whom  he  scourges  and  plagues  the  world  under  him,  to  wit, 
tyrants ;  and  was  there  ever  any  tyrant  since  the  creation  who 
was  'not  also  false  and  perfidious  ?  Do  not  the  bloody  and  de- 
ceitful men  still  go  hand  in  hand  together,  in  the  language  of 
the  scripture,  Ps.  lv.  23  ?  Was  ever  any  people  more  cruel,  and 
withal  more  false  than  the  Carthaginians?  And  had  not  the 
hypocritical  contrivers  of  the  murder  of  that  blessed  martyr 
king  Charles  the  first,  their  masks  and  vizards,  as  well  as  his 
executioners  ? 

No  man  that  designs  to  rob  another  of  his  estate  or  life,  will 
be  so  impudent  or  ignorant  as  in  plain  terms  to  tell  him  so. 
But  if  it  be  his  estate  that  he  drives  at,  he  will  dazzle  his  eyes, 
and  bait  him  in  with  the  luscious  proposal  of  some  gainful  pur- 
chase, some  rich  match,  or  advantageous  project ;  till  the  easy 
man  is  caught  and  hampered ;  and  so,  partly  by  lies,  and  partly 
by  law-suits  together,  comes  at  length  to  be  stripped  of  all,  and 
brought  to  a  piece  of  bread  when  he  can  get  it.  Or  if  it  be  a 
man's  life  that  the  malice  of  his  enemy  seeks  after,  he  will  not 
presently  clap  his  pistol  to  his  breast,  or  his  knife  to  his  throat, 
but  will  rather  take  Absalom  for  his  pattern,  who  invited  his 
dear  brother  to  a  feast,  hugged  and  embraced,  courted  and 
caressed  him,  till  he  had  well  dosed  his  weak  head  with  wine, 
and  his  foolish  heart  with  confidence  and  credulity ;  and  then,  in 
he  brings  him  an  old  reckoning,  and  makes  him  pay  it  off  with 
his  blood.  Or,  perhaps,  the  cut-throat  may  rather  take  his  copy 
from  the  Parisian  massacre,  one  of  the  horridest  instances  of 
barbarous  inhumanity  that  ever  the  world  saw,  but  ushered  in 
with  all  the  pretences  of  amity,  and  the  festival  treats  of  a 
reconciling  marriage ;  a  new  and  excellent  way,  no  doubt,  of 
proving  matrimony  a  sacrament.  But  such  butchers  know  what 
they  have  to  do  ;  they  must  soothe  and  allure  before  they  strike  : 
and  the  ox  must  be  fed  before  he  is  brought  to  the  slaughter ; 
and  the  same  course  must  be  taken  with  some  sort  of  asses  too. 

In  a  word,  I  verily  believe,  that  no  sad  disaster  ever  yet  befell 
any  person  or  people,  nor  any  villany  or  flagitious  action  was 
ever  yet  committed,  but  upon  a  due  inquiry  into  the  causes  of 
it,  it  will  be  found,  that  a  lie  was  first  or  last  the  principal  engine 
to  effect  it:  and  that,  whether  pride,  lust,  or  cruelty  brought  it 

*  He  particularly  mentioned  those  of  Brooks  and  Calaray. 


OF  THE  BASE  SINS  OF  FALSEHOOD  AND  LYING.  195 

forth,  it  was  falsehood  that  begot  it ;  this  gave  it  being,  whatsoever 
other  vice  might  give  it  birth. 

3.  As  we  have  seen  how  much  lying  and  falsehood  disturbs ; 
so,  in  the  next  place,  we  shall  see  also  how  it  tends  utterly  to 
dissolve  society.  There  is  no  doubt  but  all  the  safety,  happiness, 
and  convenience  that  men  enjoy  in  this  life,  is  from  the  combi- 
nation of  particular  persons  into  societies  or  corporations:  the 
cause  of  which  is  compact;  and  the  band  that  knits  together 
and  supports  all  compacts,  is  truth  and  faithfulness.  So  that 
the  soul  and  spirit  that  animates  and  keeps  up  society,  is  mutual 
trust;  and  the  foundation  of  trust  is  truth,  either  known,  or  at 
least  supposed  in  the  persons  so  trusted. 

But  now,  where  fraud  and  falsehood,  like  a  plague  or  canker, 
comes  once  to  invade  society,  the  band  which  held  together  the 
parts  compounding  it,  presently  breaks,  and  men  are  thereby  put 
to  a  loss  where  to  league  and  to  fasten  their  dependencies,  and 
so  are  forced  to  scatter  and  shift  every  one  for  himself.  Upon 
which  account  every  notoriously  false  person  ought  to  be  looked 
upon  and  detested  as  a  public  enemy,  and  to  be  pursued  as  a 
wolf  or  a  mad  dog,  and  a  disturber  of  the  common  peace  and 
welfare  of  mankind :  there  being  no  particular  person  whatsoever 
but  has  his  private  interest  concerned  and  endangered  in  the 
mischief  that  such  a  wretch  does  to  the  public. 

For  look  into  great  families,  and  you  shall  find  some  one  false, 
paltry  talebearer,  who,  by  carrying  stories  from  one  to  another, 
shall  inflame  the  minds,  and  discompose  the  quiet  of  the  whole 
family:  and  from  families  pass  to  towns  or  cities,  and  two  or 
three  pragmatical,  intriguing,  meddling  fellows  (men  of  business 
some  call  them),  by  the  venom  of  their  false  tongues,  shall  set 
the  whole  neighbourhood  together  by  the  ears.  Where  men 
practise  falsehood,  and  show  tricks  with  one  another,  there  will 
be  perpetual  suspicions,  evil  surmisings,  doubts  and  jealousies, 
which,  by  souring  the  minds  of  men,  are  the  bane  and  pest  of 
society.  For  still  society  is  built  upon  trust,  and  trust  upon  the 
confidence  that  men  have  of  one  another's  integrity. 

And  this  is  so  evident,  that  without  trusting,  there  could  not 
only  be  no  happiness,  but  indeed  no  living  in  this  world.  For 
in  those  very  things  that  minister  to  the  daily  necessities  of 
common  life,  how  can  any  one  be  assured  that  the  very  meat  and 
drink  that  he  is  to  take  into  his  body,  and  the  clothes  he  is  to 
put  on,  are  not  poisoned,  and  made  unwholesome  for  him,  before 
ever  they  are  brought  to  him  ?  Nay,  in  some  places  (with  horror 
be  it  spoken),  how  can  a  man  be  secure  in  taking  the  very  sacra- 
ment itself?  For  there  have  been  those  who  have  found  some- 
thing in  this  spiritual  food  that  has  proved  very  fatal  to  their 
bodies,  and  more  than  prepared  them  for  another  world.  I  say, 
how  can  any  one  warrant  himself  in  the  use  of  these  things 
against  such  suspicions,  but  in  the  trust  he  has  in  the  common 


196 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  xn 


honesty  and  truth  of  men  in  general,  which  ought  and  uses  to 
keep  them  from  such  villanies?  Nevertheless  know  this  cer- 
tainly beforehand  he  cannot,  forasmuch  as  such  things  have  been 
done,  and  consequently  may  be  done  again.  And  therefore,  as 
for  any  infallible  assurance  to  the  contrary,  he  can  have  none: 
but,  in  the  great  concerns  of  life  and  health,  every  man  must  be 
forced  to  proceed  upon  trust,  there  being  no  knowing  the  inten- 
tion of  the  cook  or  baker,  any  more  than  of  the  priest  himself. 
And  yet,  if  a  man  should  forbear  his  food,  or  raiment,  or  most 
of  his  business  in  the  world,  till  he  had  science  and  certainty  of 
the  safeness  of  what  he  was  going  about,  he  must  starve,  and  die 
disputing ;  for  there  is  neither  eating,  nor  drinking,  nor  living  by 
demonstraiton. 

Now  this  shows  the  high  malignity  of  fraud  and  falsehood, 
that,  in  the  direct  and  natural  course  of  it,  tends  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  common  life,  by  destroying  that  trust  and  mutual  confi- 
dence that  men  would  have  in  one  another,  by  which  the  common 
intercourse  of  the  world  must  be  carried  on,  and  without  which 
men  must  first  distrust,  and  then  divide,  separate,  and  stand 
upon  their  guard,  with  their  hand  against  every  one,  and  every 
one's  hand  against  them. 

The  felicity  of  societies  and  bodies  politic  consists  in  this,  that 
all  relations  in  them  do  regularly  discharge  their  respective 
duties  and  offices ;  such  as  are  the  relations  between  prince  and 
subject,  master  and  servant,  a  man  and  his  friend,  husband  and 
wife,  parent  and  child,  buyer  and  seller,  and  the  like.  But  now, 
where  fraud  and  falsehood  take  place,  there  is  not  one  of  all  these 
that  is  not  perverted,  and  that  does  not,  from  a  help  of  society, 
directly  become  a  hinderance.  For  first,  it  turns  all  above  us 
into  tyranny  and  barbarity;  and  all  of  the  same  religion  and 
level  with  us  into  discord  and  confusion.  It  is  this  alone  that 
poisons  that  sovereign  and  divine  thing  called  friendship ;  so  that 
when  a  man  thinks  that  he  leans  upon  a  breast  as  loving  and  true 
to  him  as  his  own,  he  finds  that  he  relies  upon  a  broken  reed,  that 
not  only  basely  fails,  but  also  cruelly  pierces  the  hand  that  rests 
upon  it.  It  is  from  this,  that  when  a  man  thinks  he  has  a  ser- 
vant or  dependent,  an  instrument  of  his  affairs,  and  a  defence  of 
his  person,  he  finds  a  traitor  and  a  Judas,  an  enemy  that  eats 
his  bread  and  lies  under  his  roof ;  and  perhaps  readier  to  do  him 
a  mischief  and  a  shrewd  turn  than  an  open  and  professed  adver- 
sary. And  lastly,  from  this  deceit  and  falsehood  it  is,  that  when 
a  man  thinks  himself  matched  to  one,  who,  by  the  laws  of  God 
and  nature,  should  be  a  comfort  to  him  in  all  conditions,  a  con- 
sort of  his  cares,  and  a  companion  in  all  his  concerns,  instead 
thereof,  he  finds  in  his  bosom  a  beast,  a  serpent,  and  a  devil. 

In  a  word :  he  that  has  to  do  with  a  liar,  knows  not  where  he 
is,  nor  what  he  does,  nor  with  whom  he  deals.  He  walks  upon 
bogs  and  whirlpools ;  wheresoever  he  treads  he  sinks,  and  converses 


OF  THE  BASE  SINS  OF  FALSEHOOD  AND  LYING. 


197 


with  a  bottomless  pit,  where  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  fix,  or  to 
be  at  any  certainty.  In  fine,  he  catches  at  an  apple  of  Sodom, 
which,  though  it  may  entertain  his  eye  with  a  florid,  jolly  white 
and  red,  yet,  upon  the  touch,  it  shall  fill  his  hand  only  with  stench 
and  foulness  ;  fair  in  look,  and  rotten  at  heart ;  as  the  gayest  and 
most  taking  things  and  persons  in  the  world  generally  are. 

4.  And  lastly:  deceit  and  falsehood  do,  of  all  other  ill  quali- 
ties, most  peculiarly  indispose  the  hearts  of  men  to  the  impres- 
sions of  religion.  For  these  are  sins  perfectly  spiritual,  and  so 
prepossess  the  proper  seat  and  place  of  religion,  which  is  the  soul 
or  spirit :  and,  when  that  is  once  filled  and  taken  up  with  a  lie, 
there  will  hardly  be  admission  or  room  for  truth.  Christianity 
is  known  in  scripture  by  no  name  so  significantly,  as  by  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  gospel. 

And  if  so,  does  it  not  look  like  the  greatest  paradox  and  pro- 
digy in  nature,  for  any  one  to  pretend  it  lawful  to  equivocate  or 
lie  for  it?  To  face  God  and  outface  man,  with  the  sacrament 
and  a  lie  in  one's  mouth  together?  Can  a  good  intention,  or 
rather  a  very  wicked  one,  so  miscalled,  sanctify  and  transform 
perjury  and  hypocrisy  into  merit  and  perfection  ?  Or  can  there 
be  a  greater  blot  cast  upon  any  church  or  religion,  whatsoever  it 
be,  than  by  such  a  practice  ?  For  will  not  the  world  be  induced 
to  look  upon  my  religion  as  a  lie,  if  I  allow  myself  to  lie  for  my 
religion  ? 

The  very  life  and  soul  of  all  religion  is  sincerity.  And  there- 
fore the  good  ground,  in  which  ak>ne  the  immortal  seed  of  the 
word  sprang  up  to  perfection,  is  said,  in  St.  Luke  viii.  15,  to  have 
been  those  that  "received  it  into  an  honest  heart;"  that  is,  a 
plain,  clear,  and  well  meaning  heart;  a  heart  not  doubled,  nor 
cast  into  the  various  folds  and  windings  of  a  dodging,  shifting, 
hypocrisy.  For  the  truth  is,  the  more  spiritual  and  refined  any 
sin  is,  the  more  hardly  is  the  soul  cured  of  it ;  because  the  more 
difficultly  convinced.  And  in  all  our  spiritual  maladies  conviction 
must  still  begin  the  cure. 

Such  sins,  indeed,  as  are  acted  by  the  body,  do  quickly  show 
and  proclaim  themselves  ;  and  it  is  no  such  hard  matter  to  con- 
vince or  run  down  a  drunkard,  or  an  unclean  person,  and  to  stop 
their  mouths,  and  to  answer  any  pretences  that  they  can  allege 
for  their  sin.  But  deceit  is  such  a  sin  as  a  Pharisee  may  be 
guilty  of,  and  yet  stand  fair  for  the  reputation  of  zeal  and  strict- 
ness, and  a  more  than  ordinary  exactness  in  religion.  And 
though  some  have  been  apt  to  account  none  sinful  or  vicious,  but 
such  as  wallow  in  the  mire  and  dirt  of  gross  sensuality ;  yet,  no 
doubt,  deceit,  falsehood,  and  hypocrisy,  are  more  directly  contrary 
to  the  very  essence  and  design  of  religion,  and  carry  in  them 
more  of  the  express  image  and  superscription  of  the  devil  than 
any  bodily  sins  whatsoever.  How  did  that  false,  fasting,  impe- 
rious, self-admiring,  or  rather  self-adoring  hypocrite,  in  St.  Luke 


198 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XII. 


xviii.  11,  crow  and  insult  over  the  poor  publican !  "  God,  I  thank 
thee,"  says  he,  "that  I  am  not  like  other  men."  And  God  forbid, 
say  I,  that  there  should  be  many  others  like  him,  for  a  glistering 
outside,  and  a  noisome  inside,  for  "  tithing  mint  and  cummin,  and 
for  devouring  widows'  houses  ;"  that  is,  for  taking  ten  parts  from 
his  neighbour,  and  putting  God  off  with  one.  After  all  which, 
had  this  man  of  merit  and  mortification  been  called  to  account 
for  his  ungodly  swallow,  in  gorging  down  the  estates  of  helpless 
widows  and  orphans,  it  is  odds  but  he  would  have  told  you,  that 
it  was  all  for  charitable  uses,  and  to  afford  pensions  for  spies  and 
proselytes :  it  being  no  ordinary  piece  of  spiritual  good  hus- 
bandry, to  be  charitable  at  other  men's  cost. 

But  such  sons  of  Abraham,  how  highly  soever  they  may  have 
the  luck  to  be  thought  of,  are  far  from  being  Israelites  indeed ; 
for  the  character  that  our  Saviour  gives  us  of  such,  in  the  person 
of  Nathanael,  in  John  i.  47,  is,  "  that  they  are  without  guile." 
To  be  so,  I  confess,  is  generally  reckoned,  of  late  times  especially, 
a  poor,  mean,  sneaking  thing;  and  the  contrary,  reputed  wit 
and  parts,  and  fitness  for  business,  as  the  word  is  :  though  I 
doubt  not  but  it  will  be  one  day  found,  that  only  honesty  and 
integrity  can  fit  a  man  for  the  main  business  that  he  was  sent 
into  the  world  for ;  and  that  he  certainly  is  the  greatest  wit  who 
is  wise  to  salvation. 

And  thus  much  for  the  second  general  thing  proposed ;  which 
was,  to  show  the  pernicious  effects  of  lying  and  falsehood.  Come 
we  now  to  the 

III.  And  last ;  which  is,  to  lay  before  you  the  rewards  or 
punishments  that  will  assuredly  attend,  or  at  least  follow  this  base 
practice. 

I  shall  mention  three  :  as, 

1.  An  utter  loss  of  all  credit  and  belief  with  sober  and  discreet 
persons ;  and  consequently,  of  all  capacity  of  being  useful  in  the 
prime  and  noblest  concerns  of  life.  For  there  cannot  be  imagined 
in  nature  a  more  forlorn,  useless,  and  contemptible  tool,  or  more 
unfit  for  any  thing,  than  a  discovered  cheat.  And  let  men  rest 
assured  of  this,  that  there  will  be  always  some  as  able  to  discover 
and  find  out  deceitful  tricks,  as  others  can  be  to  contrive  them. 
For  God  forbid,  that  all  the  wit  and  cunning  of  the  world  should 
still  run  on  the  deceiver's  side ;  and  when  such  little  shifts  and 
shuffling  arts  come  once  to  be  ripped  up  and  laid  open,  how 
poorly  and  wretchedly  must  that  man  needs  sneak,  who  finds 
himself  both  guilty  and  baffled  too!  a  knave  without  luck,  is 
certainly  the  worst  trade  in  the  world.  But  truth  makes  the  face 
of  that  person  shine,  who  speaks  and  owns  it ;  while  a  lie  is  like 
a  vizard,  that  may  cover  the  face  indeed,  but  can  never  become 
it ;  nor  yet  does  it  cover  it  so,  but  that  it  leaves  it  open  enough  for 
shame.    It  brands  a  man  with  a  lasting,  indelible  character  of 


OF  THE  BASE  SINS  OF  FALSEHOOD  AND  LYING.  199 

ignominy  and  reproach,  and  that  indeed  so  foul  and  odious,  that 
those  usurping  hectors,  who  pretend  to  honour  without  religion, 
think  the  charge  of  a  lie,  a  blot  upon  them  not  to  be  washed  out, 
but  by  the  blood  of  him  that  gives  it. 

For  what  place  can  that  man  fill  in  a  commonwealth,  whom  no 
body  will  either  believe  or  employ?  And  no  man  can  be  con- 
siderable in  himself,  who  has  not  made  himself  useful  to  others : 
nor  can  any  man  be  so,  who  is  incapable  of  a  trust :  he  is  neither 
fit  for  counsel  or  friendship,  for  service  or  command,  to  be  in  office 
or  in  honour ;  but,  like  salt  that  has  lost  its  savour,  fit  only  to  rot 
and  perish  upon  a  dunghill. 

For  no  man  can  rely  upon  such  a  one,  either  with  safety  to 
his  affairs,  or  without  a  slur  to  his  reputation ;  since  he  that 
trusts  a  knave  has  no  other  recompence,  but  to  be  accounted  a 
fool  for  his  pains.  And  if  he  trusts  himself  into  ruin  and  beg- 
gary, he  falls  unpitied,  a  sacrifice  to  his  own  folly  and  credulity ; 
for  he  that  suffers  himself  to  be  imposed  upon  by  a  known  de- 
ceiver, goes  partner  in  the  cheat,  and  deceives  himself.  He  is 
despised  and  laughed  at  as  a  soft  and  easy  person,  and  as  unfit 
to  be  relied  upon  for  his  weakness,  as  the  other  can  be  for  his 
falseness. 

It  is  really  a  great  misery  not  to  know  whom  to  trust,  but  a 
much  greater  to  behave  one's  self  so  as  not  to  be  trusted.  But 
this  is  the  liar's  lot;  he  is  accounted  a  pest  and  a  nuisance,  a 
person  marked  out  for  infamy  and  scorn,  and  abandoned  by  all 
men  of  sense  and  worth,  and  such  as  will  not  abandon  themselves. 

2.  The  second  reward  or  punishment  that  attends  the  lying 
and  deceitful  person,  is  the  hatred  of  all  those  whom  he  either 
has  or  would  have  deceived.  I  do  not  say  that  a  Christian  can 
lawfully  hate  any  one ;  and  yet  I  affirm,  that  some  may  very 
worthily  deserve  to  be  hated ;  and  of  all  men  living,  wTho  may  or 
do,  the  deceiver  certainly  deserves  it  most.  To  which  I  shall 
add  this  one  remark  further ;  that  though  men's  persons  ought 
not  to  be  hated,  yet  without  all  peradventure  their  practices 
justly  may,  and  particularly  that  detestable  one  which  we  are 
now  speaking  of. 

For  whosoever  deceives  a  man,  does  not  only  do  all  that  he 
can  to  ruin  him,  but,  which  is  yet  worse,  to  make  him  ruin  him- 
self; and  by  causing  an  error  in  the  great  guide  of  all  his 
actions,  his  judgment,  to  cause  an  error  in  his  choice  too ;  the 
misguidance  of  which  must  naturally  engage  him  in  those 
courses  that  directly  tend  to  his  destruction.  Loss  of  sight  is 
the  misery  of  life,  and  usually  the  forerunner  of  death;  when 
the  malefactor  comes  once  to  be  muffled,  and  the  fatal  cloth 
drawn  over  his  eyes,  we  know  that  he  is  not  far  from  his  exe- 
cution. 

And  this  is  so  true,  that  whosoever  sees  a  man  who  would 
have  beguiled  and  imposed  upon  him  by  making  him  believe  a 


200 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XII. 


lie,  he  may  truly  say  of  that  person,  that  is  the  man  who  would 
have  ruined  me,  who  would  have  stripped  me  of  the  dignity  of 
my  nature,  and  put  out  the  eyes  of  my  reason,  to  make  himself 
sport  with  my  calamity,  my  folly,  and  my  dishonour.  For  so 
the  Philistines  used  Samson;  and  every  man  in  this  sad  case 
has  enough  of  Samson  to  be  his  own  executioner.  Accordingly, 
if  it  ever  comes  to  this,  that  a  man  can  say  of  his  confidant,  he 
would  have  deceived  me,  he  has  said  enough  to  annihilate  and 
abolish  all  pretences  of  friendship.  And  it  is  really  an  intolera- 
ble impudence,  for  any  one  to  offer  at  the  name  of  friend  after 
such  an  attempt.  For  can  there  be  any  thing  of  friendship  in 
snares,  hooks,  and  trepans?  And,  therefore,  whosoever  breaks 
with  his  friend  upon  such  terms,  has  enough  to  warrant  him  in 
so  doing,  both  before  God  and  man;  and  that  without  incurring 
either  the  guilt  of  unfaithfulness  before  the  one,  or  the  blemish 
of  inconstancy  before  the  other.  For  this  is  not  properly  to 
break  with  a  friend,  but  to  discover  an  enemy,  and  timely  to 
shake  the  viper  off  from  one's  hand. 

What  says  the  most  wise  author  of  that  excellent  book  of 
Ecclesiasticus ?  Ecclus.  xxii.  21,  22;  "Though  thou  drewest  a 
sword  at  thy  friend,  yet  despair  not ;  for  there  may  be  a  return- 
ing to  favour.  If  thou  hast  opened  thy  mouth  against  thy 
friend,  fear  not;  for  there  may  be  a  reconciliation."  That  is, 
a  hasty  word  or  an  indiscreet  action  does  not  presently  dissolve 
the  bond,  or  root  out  a  well-settled  habit,  but  that  friendship 
may  be  still  sound  at  heart,  and  so  outgrow  and  wear  off  these 
little  distempers.  But  what  follows?  "Except  for  upbraiding, 
or  disclosing  of  secrets,  or  a  treacherous  wound  (mark  that) :  for 
for  these  things,"  says  he,  "every  friend  will  depart."  And 
surely  it  is  high  time  for  him  to  go,  when  such  a  devil  drives 
him  away.  Passion,  anger,  and  unkindness,  may  give  a  wound 
that  shall  bleed  and  smart,  but  it  is  treachery  only  that  makes  it 
fester. 

And  the  reason  of  the  difference  is  manifest ;  for  hasty  words 
or  blows  may  be  only  the  effects  of  a  sudden  passion,  during 
which  a  man  is  not  perfectly  himself :  but  no  man  goes  about  to 
deceive,  or  ensnare,  or  circumvent  another,  in  a  passion ;  to  lay 
trains,  and  set  traps,  and  give  secret  blows,  in  a  present  huff. 
No ;  this  is  always  done  with  forecast  and  design,  with  a  steady 
aiming,  and  a  long  projecting  malice,  assisted  with  all  the  skill 
and  art  of  an  expert  and  well  managed  hypocrisy ;  and,  perhaps, 
not  without  the  pharisaical  feigned  guise  of  something  like  self- 
denial  and  mortification;  which  are  things  in  which  the  whole 
man,  and  the  whole  devil  too,  are  employed,  and  all  the  powers 
and  faculties  of  the  mind  are  exerted  and  made  use  of. 

But  for  all  these  masks  and  vizards,  nothing  certainly  can  be 
thought  of  or  imagined  more  base,  inhuman,  or  diabolical,  than 
for  one  to  abuse  the  generous  confidence  and  hearty  freedom  of 


OF  THE  BASE  SINS  OF  FALSEHOOD  AND  LYING.  201 

his  friend,  and  to  undermine  and  ruin  him  in  those  very  con- 
cerns, which  nothing  but  too  great  a  respect  to,  and  too  good  an 
opinion  of  the  traitor,  made  the  poor  man  deposit  in  his  hollow 
and  fallacious  breast.  Such  a  one,  perhaps,  thinks  to  find  some 
support  and  shelter  in  my  friendship,  and  I  take  that  oppor- 
tunity to  betray  him  to  his  mortal  enemies.  He  comes  to  me 
for  counsel,  and  I  show  him  a  trick :  he  opens  his  bosom  to  me, 
and  I  stab  him  to  the  heart. 

These  are  the  practices  of  the  world  we  live  in ;  especially 
since  the  year  sixty,  the  grand  epoch  of  falsehood,  as  well  as 
debauchery.  But  God,  who  is  the  great  guarantee  for  the  peace, 
order,  and  good  behaviour  of  mankind,  where  laws  cannot  secure 
it,  may,  some  time  or  other,  think  it  the  concern  of  his  justice 
and  providence  too,  to  revenge  the  affronts  put  upon  them  by 
such  impudent  defiers  of  both,  as  neither  believe  av  God,  nor 
ought  to  be  believed  by  man. 

In  the  mean  time,  let  such  perfidious  wretches  know  that 
though  they  believe  a  devil  no  more  than  they  do  a  God,  yet  in 
all  this  scene  of  refined  treachery,  they  are  really  doing  the 
devil's  journey-work,  who  was  a  liar  and  a  murderer  from  the 
beginning,  and  therefore  a  liar,  that  he  might  be  a  murderer: 
and  the  truth  is,  such  a  one  does  all  towards  his  brother's  ruin 
that  the  devil  himself  could  do  :  for  the  devil  can  but  tempt  and 
deceive  ;  and  if  he  cannot  destroy  a  man  that  way,  his  power  is 
at  an  end. 

But  I  cannot  dismiss  this  head  without  one  further  note,  as 
very  material  in  the  case  now  before  us  ;  namely  that  since  this 
false,  wily,  doubling  disposition  of  mind  is  so  intolerably  mis- 
chievous to  society,  God  is  sometimes  pleased,  in  mere  pity*  and 
compassion  to  men,  to  give  them  warning  of  it,  by  setting  some 
odd  mark  upon  such  Cains.  So  that  if  a  man  will  be  but  so  true 
to  himself,  as  to  observe  such  persons  exactly,  he  shall  generally 
spy  such  false  lines,  and  such  a  sly,  treacherous  fleer  upon  their 
face,  that  he  shall  be  sure  to  have  a  cast  of  their  eye  to  warn 
him,  before  they  give  him  a  cast  of  their  nature  to  betray  him. 
And  in  such  cases,  a  man  may  see  more  and  better  by  another's  » 
eye,  than  he  can  by  his  own. 

Let  this  therefore  be  the  second  reward  of  the  lying  and  de- 
ceitful person,  that  he  is  the  object  of  a  just  hatred  and  abhor- 
rence. For  as  the  devil  is  both  a  liar  himself,  and  the  father  of 
liars:  so,  I  think,  that  the  same  cause  that  has  drawn  the  hatred 
of  God  and  man  upon  the  father,  may  justly  entail  it  upon  his 
offspring  too  ;  and  it  is  pity  that  such  an  entail  should  ever  be  cut 
off.  But, 

3.  And  lastly:  the  last  and  utmost  reward,  that  shall  infalli- 
bly reach  the  fraudulent  and  deceitful,  as  it  will  all  other  obsti- 
nate and  impenitent  sinners,  is,  a  final  and  eternal  separation 
from  God,  who  is  truth  itself,  and  with  whom  no  shadow  of 

Vol.  I. — 26 


202 


DR.  SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XII. 


falsehood  can  dwell.  "  He  that  telleth  lies,"  says  David,  in  Ps. 
ci.  7,  "  shall  not  tarry  in  my  sight:"  and  if  not  in  the  sight  of  a 
poor  mortal  man,  who  could  sometimes  lie  himself,  how  much 
less  in  the  presence  of  the  infinite  and  all-knowing  God  !  A  wise 
and  good  prince  or  governor  will  not  vouchsafe  a  liar  the  coun- 
tenance of  his  eye,  and  much  less  the  privilege  of  his  ear.  The 
Spirit  of  God  seems  to  write  this  upon  the  very  gates  of  heaven, 
and  to  state  the  condition  of  men's  entrance  into  glory,  chiefly 
upon  their  veracity.  In  Ps.  xv.  1,  "  Who  shall  ascend  into  thy 
holy  hill?"  says  the  psalmist,  to  which  it  is  answered,  in  ver.  2, 
"  He  that  worketh  righteousness,  and  that  speaketh  the  truth 
from  his  heart." 

And,  on  the  other  side,  how  emphatically  is  hell  described  in 
the  two  last  chapters  of  the  Revelation,  by  being  the  great  re- 
ceptacle and  mansion-house  of  liars,  whom  he  shall  find  there 
ranged  with  the  vilest  and  most  detestable  of  all  sinners,  ap- 
pointed to  have  their  portion  in  that  horrid  place !  Rev.  xxi.  8, 
"  The  unbelieving,  and  the  abominable,  and  murderers,  and 
whoremongers,  and  sorcerers,  and  idolaters,  and  all  liars,  shall 
have  their  share  in  the  lake  which  burneth  with  fire  and  brim- 
stone:" and  in  Rev.  xxii.  15,  "  Without  are  dogs,  and  sorcerers, 
&c,  and  whosoever  loveth  and  maketh  a  lie." 
--Now  -let  those  consider  this,  whose  tongue  and  heart  hold  no 
correspondence ;  who  look  upon  it  as  a  piece  of  art  and  wisdom, 
and  the  masterpiece  of  conversation,  to  overreach  and  deceive, 
and  make  a  prey  of  a  credulous  and  well  meaning  honesty. 
What  do  such  persons  think?  Are  dogs,  whoremongers,  and 
sorcerers,  such  desirable  company  to  take  up  with  for  ever  ?  Will 
the  burning  lake  be  found  so  tolerable  ?  Or  will  there  be  any  one 
to  drop  refreshment  upon  the  false  tongue,  when  it  shall  be  tor- 
mented in  those  flames  ?  Or  do  they  think  that  God  is  a  liar 
like  themselves,  and  that  no  such  thing  shall  ever  come  to  pass, 
but  that  all  these  fiery  threatenings  shall  vanish  into  smoke,  and 
this  dreadful  sentence  blow  off  without  execution  ?  Few  certainly 
can  lie  to  their  own  hearts  so  far,  as  to  imagine  this :  but  hell  is, 
and  must  be  granted  to  be  the  deceiver's  portion,  not  only  by 
the  judgment  of  God,  but  of  his  own  conscience  too.  And, 
comparing  the  malignity  of  his  sin  with  the  nature  of  the 
punishment  allotted  for  him,  all  that  can  be  said  of  a  liar  lodged 
in  the  very  nethermost  hell,  is  this ;  that  if  the  vengeance  of 
God  could  prepare  any  place  or  condition  worse  than  hell  for 
sinners,  hell  itself  would  be  too  good  for  him. 

And  now  to  sum  up  all  in  short:  I  have  shown  what  a  lie  is, 
and  wherein  the  nature  of  falsehood  does  consist:  that  it  is  a 
thing  absolutely  and  intrinsically  evil ;  that  it  is  an  act  of  injus- 
tice, and  a  violation  of  our  neighbour's  right. 

And  that  the  vileness  of  its  nature  is  equalled  by  the  malignity 
of  its  effects ;  it  being  this  that  first  brought  sin  into  the  world, 


OF  THE  BASE  SINS  OF  FALSEHOOD  AND  LYING.  203 

and  is  since  the  cause  of  all  those  miseries  and  calamities  that 
disturb  it ;  and  further,  that  it  tends  utterly  to  dissolve  and  over- 
throw society,  which  is  the  greatest  temporal  blessing  and  support 
of  mankind :  and,  which  is  yet  worst  of  all,  that  it  has  a  strange 
and  particular  efficacy,  above  all  other  sins,  to  indispose  the  heart 
to  religion. 

And,  lastly,  that  it  is  as  dreadful  in  its  punishments,  as  it  has 
been  pernicious  in  its  effects.  Forasmuch  as  it  deprives  a  man  of 
all  credit  and  belief,  and  consequently  of  all  capacity  of  being  useful 
in  any  station  or  condition  of  life  whatsoever ;  and  next,  that  it 
draws  upon  him  the  just  and  universal  hatred  and  abhorrence  of 
all  men  here ;  and  finally,  subjects  him  to  the  wrath  of  God,  and 
eternal  damnation  hereafter. 

And  now,  if  none  of  all  these  considerations  can  recommend  and 
endear  truth  to  the  words  and  practices  of  men,  and  work  upon  their 
double  hearts,  so  far  as  to  convince  and  make  them  sensible  of  the 
baseness  of  the  sin,  and  greatness  of  the  guilt,  that  fraud  and  false- 
hood leaves  upon  the  soul ;  let  them  lie  and  cheat  on,  till  they 
receive  a  fuller  and  more  effectual  conviction  of  all  these  things, 
in  that  place  of  torment  and  confusion  prepared  for  the  devil  and 
his  angels,  and  all  his  lying  retinue,  by  the  decree  and  sentence 
of  that  God,  who  in  his  threatenings  as  well  as  in  his  promises,  will 
be  true  to  his  word,  and  cannot  lie. 

To  whom  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise, 
might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  evermore,  Amen, 


A  SERMON 


PREACHED  AT  WESTMINSTER  ABBEY,  1667. 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY. 

TO  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD.* 

Reverend  and  Learned  Sirs, 

These  discourses,  most  of  them  at  least,  having  by  the  favour  of 
your  patience  had  the  honour  of  your  audience,  and  being  now  pub- 
lished in  another  and  more  lasting  way,  do  here  humbly  cast  them- 
selves at  your  feet,  imploring  the  yet  greater  favour  and  honour  of 
your  patronage,  or  at  least  the  benevolence  of  your  pardon. 

Amongst  which,  the  chief  design  of  some  of  them  is  to  assert  the 
rites  and  constitutions  of  our  excellently  reformed  church,  which  of 
late  we  so  often  hear  reproached,  in  the  modish  dialect  of  the  present 
times,  by  the  name  of  little  things ;  and  that  in  order  to  their  being 
laid  aside,  not  only  as  little,  but  superfluous.  But  for  my  own  part, 
I  can  account  nothing  little  in  any  church,  which  has  the  stamp  of 
undoubted  authority,  and  the  practice  of  primitive  antiquity,  as  well 
as  the  reason  and  decency  of  the  thing  itself,  to  warrant  and  support 
it ;  though,  if  the  supposed  littleness  of  these  matters  should  be  a 
sufficient  reason  for  the  laying  them  aside,  I  fear  our  church  will  be 
found  to  have  more  little  men  to  spare  than  little  things. 

But  I  have  observed  all  along,  that  while  this  innovating  spirit  has 
been  striking  at  the  constitutions  of  our  church,  the  same  has  been 
giving  several  bold  and  scurvy  strokes  at  some  of  her  articles  too : 
an  evident  demonstration  to  me,  that  whensoever  her  discipline  shall 
be  destroyed,  her  doctrine  will  not  long  survive  it :  and  I  doubt  not 
but  it  is  for  the  sake  of  this,  that  the  former  is  so  much  maligned  and 
shot  at.  Pelagianism  and  Socinianism,  with  several  other  hetero- 
doxies cognate  to  and  dependent  upon  them,  which  of  late,  with  so 
*  This  dedication  refers  to  the  twelve  sermons  next  following. 

204 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY. 


205 


much  confidence  and  scandalous  countenance,  walk  about  daring  the 
world,  are  certainly  no  doctrines  of  the  church  of  England :  and  none 
are  abler  and  fitter  to  make  them  appear  what  they  are,  and  whither 
they  tend,  than  our  excellent  and  so  well-stocked  universities;  and 
if  these  will  but  bestir  themselves  against  all  innovators  whatsoever, 
it  will  quickly  be  seen,  that  our  church  needs  none  either  to  fill  her 
places,  or  to  defend  her  doctrines,  but  the  sons  whom  she  herself  has 
brought  forth  and  bred  up.  Her  charity  is  indeed  great  to  others, 
and  the  greater,  for  that  she  is  so  well  provided  of  all  that  can  contri- 
bute either  to  her  strength  or  ornament  without  them.  The  altar 
receives  and  protects  such  as  fly  to  it,  but  needs  them  not. 

We  are  not  so  dull,  but  we  perceive  who  are  the  prime  designers, 
as  well  as  the  professed  actors  against  our  church,  and  from  what 
quarter  the  blow  chiefly  threatens  us.  We  know  the  spring,  as  well 
as  we  observe  the  motion,  and  scent  the  foot  which  pursues,  as  well 
as  see  the  hand  which  is  lifted  up  against  us.  The  pope  is  an  expe- 
rienced workman ;  he  knows  his  tools,  and  he  knows  them  to  be  but 
tools,  and  he  knows  withal  how  to  use  them  ;  and  that  so,  that  they 
shall  neither  know  who  it  is  that  uses  them,  or  what  he  uses  them 
for ;  and  we  cannot  in  reason  presume  his  skill  now  in  ninety-three, 
to  be  at  all  less  than  it  was  in  forty-one.  But  God,  who  has  even  to 
a  miracle  protected  the  church  of  England  hitherto,  against  all  the 
power  and  spite  both  of  her  open  and  concealed  enemies,  will,  we 
hope,  continue  to  protect  so  pure  and  rational,  so  innocent  and  self- 
denying  a  constitution  still.  And  next,  under  God,  we  must  rely 
upon  the  old  church  of  England  clergy,  together  with  the  two  uni- 
versities, both  to  support  and  recover  her  declining  state.  For  so 
long  as  the  universities  are  sound  and  orthodox,  the  church  has  both 
her  eyes  open ;  and  while  she  has  so,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  she  will 
look  about  her ;  and  consider  again  and  again  what  she  is  to  change 
from,  and  what  she  must  change  to,  and  where  she  shall  make  an 
end  of  changing,  before  she  quits  her  present  constitution. 

Innovations  about  religion  are  certainly  the  most  efficacious,  as 
well  as  the  most  plausible  way  of  compassing  a  total  abolition  of  it. 
One  of  the  best  and  strongest  arguments  we  have  against  popery,  is, 
that  it  is  an  innovation  upon  the  Christian  church;  and  if  so,  I  cannot 
see  why  that  which  we  explode  in  the  popish  church,  should  pass  for 
such  a  piece  of  perfection  in  a  reformed  one.  The  papists,  I  am 
sure,  (our  shrewdest  and  most  designing  enemies)  desire  and  push 
on  this  to  their  utmost;  and  for  that  very  reason,  one  would  think, 
that  we,  if  we  are  not  besotted,  should  oppose  it  to  our  utmost  too. 
However,  let  us  but  have  our  liturgy  continued  to  us,  as  it  is,  till  the 

S 


206 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY. 


persons  are  born,  who  shall  be  able  to  mend  it,  or  make  a  better,  and 
we  desire  no  greater  security  against  either  the  altering  this,  or  intro- 
ducing another. 

The  truth  is,  such  as  would  new  model  the  church  of  England, 
ought  not  only  to  have  a  new  religion,  which  some  have  been  so  long 
driving  at,  but  a  new  reason  likewise,  to  proceed  by :  since  expe- 
rience, which  was  ever  yet  accounted  one  of  the  surest  and  best 
improvements  of  reason,  has  been  always  for  acquiescing  in  things 
settled  with  sober  and  mature  advice  (and,  in  the  present  case  also, 
with  the  very  blood  and  martyrdom  of  the  advisers  themselves),  with- 
out running  the  risk  of  new  experiments  ;  which,  though  in  philoso- 
phy they  may  be  commendable,  yet  in  religion  and  religious  matters 
are  generally  fatal  and  pernicious.  The  church  is  a  royal  society  for 
settling  old  things,  and  not  for  finding  out  new.  In  a  word,  we  serve 
a  wise  and  unchangeable*  God,  and  we  deserve  to  do  it  by  a  religion 
and  in  a  church  (as  like  him  as  may  be)  without  changes  or  alterations. 

And  now,  as  in  so  important  a  matter  I  would  interest  both  univer- 
sities, so  I  do  it  with  the  same  honour  and  deference  to  both ;  as  ab- 
horring from  my  heart  the  pedantic  partiality  of  preferring  one  before 
the  other :  since  (if  my  relation  to  one  should  never  so  much  incline 
me  so  to  do)  I  must  sincerely  declare,  that  I  cannot  see  how  to  place 
a  preference,  where  I  can  find  no  preeminence.  And  therefore,  as 
they  are  both  equal  in  fame,  and  learning,  and  all  that  is  great  and 
excellent,  so  I  hope  to  see  them  always  one  in  judgment  and  design, 
heart  and  affection ;  and  without  any  strife,  emulation,  or  contest 
between  them,  except  this  one  (which  I  wish  may  be  perpetual),  viz. 
Which  of  the  two  best  universities  in  the  world  shall  be  most  service- 
able to  the  best  church  in  the  world  by  their  learning,  constancy,  and 
integrity. 

But  to  conclude  ;  there  remains  no  more  for  me  to  do,  but  to  beg 
pardon  of  that  august  body,  to  which  I  belong,  if  I  have  offended  in 
assuming  to  myself  the  honour  of  mentioning  my  relation  to  a  society, 
which  I  could  never  reflect  the  least  honour  upon,  nor  contribute  the 
least  advantage  to. 

All  that  I  can  add  is,  that  as  it  was  my  fortune  to  serve  this  noble 
seat  of  learning  for  many  years,  as  her  public,  though  unworthy 
orator ;  so  upon  that  and  other  innumerable  accounts,  I  ought  for 
ever  to  be,  and  to  acknowledge  myself, 

Her  most  faithful,  obedient,  and  devoted  servant, 

Robert  South. 

Westminster  Abbey,  Nov.  17,  1693. 


207 


SERMON  XIII. 

THE  PRACTICE  OF  RELIGION  ENFORCED  BY  REASON. 
[Preached  at  Westminster  Abbey,  1667.] 

Prov.  x.  9. 
He  that  walketh  uprightly  walketh  surely. 

As  it  were  easy  to  evince,  both  from  reason  and  experience,  that 
there  is  a  strange,  restless  activity  in  the  soul  of  man,  continually 
disposing  it  to  operate,  and  exert  its  faculties ;  so  the  phrase  of 
scripture  still  expresses  the  life  of  man  by  walking ;  that  is,  it 
represents  an  active  principle  in  an  active  posture.  And  because 
the  nature  of  man  carries  him  thus  out  to  action,  it  is  no  wonder 
if  the  same  nature  equally  renders  him  solicitous  about  the  issue 
and  event  of  his  actions:  for  every  one,  by  reflecting  upon  the 
way  and  method  of  his  own  workings,  will  find  that  he  is  still 
determined  in  them  by  a  respect  to  the  consequence  of  what  he 
does ;  always  proceeding  upon  this  argumentation :  If  I  do  such 
a  thing,  such  an  advantage  will  follow  from  it,  and  therefore 
I  will  do  it.  And  if  I  do  this,  such  a  mischief  will  ensue 
thereupon,  and  therefore  I  will  forbear.  Every  one,  I  say,  is 
concluded  by  this  practical  discourse ;  and  for  a  man  to  bring  his 
actions  to  the  event  proposed  and  designed  by  him,  is  to  walk 
surely.  But  since  the  event  of  an  action  usually  follows  the 
nature  or  quality  of  it,  and  the  quality  follows  the  rule  directing 
it,  it  concerns  a  man,  by  all  means,  in  the  framing  of  his  actions, 
not  to  be  deceived  in  the  rule  which  he  proposes  for  the  measure 
of  them;  which,  without  great  and  exact  caution,  he  may  be 
these  two  ways : 

1.  By  laying  false  and  deceitful  principles.  2.  In  case  he  lays 
right  principles,  yet  by  mistaking  in  the  consequences  which  he 
draws  from  them. 

An  error  in  either  of  which  is  equally  dangerous ;  for  if  a  man 
is  to  draw  a  line,  it  is  all  one  whether  he  does  it  by  a  crooked 
rule,  or  by  a  straight  one  misapplied.  He  who  fixes  upon  false 
principles  treads  upon  infirm  ground,  and  so  sinks  ;  and  he  who 
fails  in  his  deductions  from  right  principles  stumbles  upon  firm 
ground,  and  so  falls ;  the  disaster  is  not  of  the  same  kind,  but  of 
the  same  mischief  in  both. 

It  must  be  confessed,  that  it  is  sometimes  very  hard  to  judge 
of  the  truth  or  goodness  of  principles,  considered"  barely  in  them- 
selves, and  abstracted  from  their  consequences.    But  certainly  he 


208 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[serm.  xm. 


acts  upon  the  surest  and  most  prudential  grounds  in  the  world, 
who,  whether  the  principles  which  he  acts  upon  prove  true  or 
false,  yet  secures  a  happy  issue  to  his  actions. 

Now  he  who  guides  his  actions  by  the  rules  of  piety  and  reli- 
gion, lays  these  two  principles  as  the  great  ground  of  all  that  he 
does. 

I.  That  there  is  an  infinite,  eternal,  all-wise  mind  governing 
the  affairs  of  the  world,  and  taking  such  an  account  of  the 
actions  of  men,  as,  according  to  the  quality  of  them,  to  punish 
or  reward  them. 

II.  That  there  is  an  estate  of  happiness  or  misery  after  this 
life,  allotted  to  every  man,  according  to  the  quality  of  his  actions 
here.  These,  I  say,  are  the  principles  which  every  religious  man 
proposes  to  himself ;  and  the  deductions  which  he  makes  from 
them  is  this:  that  it  is  his  grand  interest  and  concern  so  to  act 
and  behave  himself  in  this  world,  as  to  secure  himself  from  an 
estate  of  misery  in  the  other.  And  thus  to  act,  is,  in  the  phrase 
of  scripture,  to  walk  uprightly  ;  and  it  is  my  business  to  prove,  that 
he  who  acts  in  the  strength  of  this  conclusion,  drawn  from  the 
two  forementioned  principles,  walks  surely,  or  secures  a  happy 
event  to  his  actions,  against  all  contingencies  whatsoever. 

And  to  demonstrate  this,  I  shall  consider  the  said  principles 
under  a  threefold  supposition  : 

1.  As  certainly  true  ;  2.  As  probable  ;  and,  3.  As  false. 

And  if  the  pious  man  brings  his  actions  to  a  happy  end, 
whichsoever  of  these  suppositions  his  principles  fall  under,  then 
certainly  there  is  none  who  walks  so  surely,  and  upon  such  irre- 
fragable grounds  of  prudence,  as  he  who  is  religious. 

I.  First  of  all  therefore  we  will  take  these  principles  (as  we 
may  very  well  do)  under  the  hypothesis  of  certainly  true :  where,, 
though  the  method  of  the  ratiocination  which  I  have  cast  the 
present  discourse  into,  does  not  naturally  engage  me  to  prove 
them  so,  but  only  to  show  what  directly  and  necessarily  follows 
upon  a  supposal  that  they  are  so  ;  yet  to  give  the  greater  perspi- 
cuity and  clearness  to  the  prosecution  of  the  subject  in  hand,  I 
shall  briefly  demonstrate  them  thus. 

It  is  necessary  that  there  should  be  some  first  mover ;  and  if  so, 
a  first  being ;  and  the  first  being  must  infer  an  infinite,  unlimited 
perfection  in  the  said  being:  forasmuch  as  if  it  were  finite  or 
limited,  that  limitation  must  have  been  either  from  itself  or  from 
something  else.  But  not  from  itself,  since  it  is  contrary  to 
reason  and  nature,  that  any  being  should  limit  its  own  perfection  ; 
nor  yet  from  something  else,  since  then  it  should  not  have  been 
the  first,  as  supposing  some  other  thing  coevous  to  it ;  which  is 
against  the  present  supposition.  So  that  it  being  clear  that  there 
must  be  a  first  being,  and  that  infinitely  perfect,  it  will  follow, 
that  all  other  perfection  that  is,  must  be  derived  from  it ;  and  so 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  RELIGION  ENFORCED  BY  REASON.  209 

we  infer  the  creation  of  the  world.  And  then  supposing  the 
world  created  by  God,  since  it  is  noways  reconcileable  to  God's 
wisdom,  that  he  should  not  also  govern  it,  creation  must  needs 
infer  providence  :  and  then,  it  being  granted  that  God  governs 
the  world,  it  will  follow  also,  that  he  does  it  by  means  suitable  to 
the  natures  of  the  things  he  governs,  and  to  the  attainment  of 
the  proper  ends  of  government.  And  moreover,  man  being  by 
nature  a  free  moral  agent,  and  so,  capable  of  deviating  from  this 
duty,  as  well  as  performing  it,  it  is  necessary  that  he  should  be 
governed  by  laws :  and  since  laws  require  that  they  be  enforced 
with  the  sanction  of  rewards  and  punishments,  sufficient  to  sway 
and  work  upon  the  minds  of  such  as  are  to  be  governed  by  them : 
and  lastly,  since  experience  shows  that  rewards  and  punishments 
terminated  only  within  this  life,  are  not  sufficient  for  that  pur- 
pose, it  fairly  and  rationally  follows,  that  the  rewards  and  punish- 
ments which  God  governs  mankind  by,  do  and  must  look  be- 
yond it. 

And  thus  I  have  given  a  brief  proof  of  the  certainly"  of  these 
principles;  namely,  that  there  is  a  supreme  Governor  of  the 
world  ;  and  that  there  is  a  future  estate  of  happiness  or  misery 
for  men  after  this  life :  which  principles,  while  a  man  steers  his 
course  by,  if  he  acts  piously,  soberly,  and  temperately,  I  suppose 
there  needs  no  further  arguments  to  evince,  that  he  acts  pru- 
dentially  and  safely ;  for  he  acts  as  under  the  eye  of  his  just  and 
severe  Judge,  who  reaches  to  his  creature  a  command  with  one 
hand,  and  a  reward  with  the  other.  He  spends  as  a  person  who 
knows  that  he  must  come  to  a  reckoning.  He  sees  an  eternal 
happiness  or  miser)-  suspended  upon  a  few  days'  behaviour :  and 
therefore  he  lives  every  hour  as  for  eternity.  His  future  condition 
has  such  a  powerful  influence  upon  his  present  practice,  because 
he  entertains  a  continual  apprehension  and  a  firm  persuasion  of 
it.  If  a  man  walks  over  a  narrow  bridge  when  he  is  drunk,  it  is 
no  wonder  that  he  forgets  his  caution,  while  he  overlooks  his 
danger.  But  he  who  is  sober,  and  -views  that  nice  separation 
between  himself  and  the  devouring  deep,  so  that  if  he  should 
slip,  he  sees  his  grave  gaping  under  him,  surely  must  needs  take 
every  step  with  horror,  and  the  utmost  caution  and  solicitude. 

But  for  a  man  to  believe  it  as  the  most  undoubted  certainty  in 
the  world,  that  he  shall  be  judged  according  to  the  quality  of 
his  actions  here,  and  after  judgment  receive  an  eternal  recom- 
pence,  and  yet  to  take  his  full  swing  in  all  the  pleasures  of  sin,  is 
it  not  a  greater  frenzy,  than  for  a  man  to  take  a  purse  at  Tyburn, 
while  he  is  actually  seeing  another  handed  for  the  same  act  ?  It 
is  really  to  dare  and  defy  the  justice  of  heaven,  to  laugh  at  right- 
aiming  thunderbolts,  to  puff  at  damnation  ;  and,  in  a  word,  to 
bid  omnipotence  do  its  worst.  He  indeed  who  thus  walks,  walks 
surely  ;  but  it  is  because  he  is  sure  to  be  damned. 

I  confess  it  is  hard  to  reconcile  such  a  stupid  course  to  the 

Vol.  L — 27  s2 


210 


DR.   SOUTHS  SERMONS. 


[serm.  XIII. 


natural  way  of  the  soul's  acting;  according  to  which,  the  will 
moves  according  to  the  proposals  of  good  and  evil,  made  by  the 
understanding.  And  therefore,  for  a  man  to  run  headlong  into 
the  bottomless  pit,  while  the  eye  of  a  seeing  conscience  assures 
him  that  it  is  bottomless  and  open,  and  all  return  from  it  despe- 
rate and  impossible ;  while  his  ruin  stares  him  in  the  face,  and 
the  sword  of  vengeance  points  directly  at  his  heart,  still  to  press 
on  to  the  embraces  of  his  sin,  is  a  problem  unresolvable  upon  any 
other  ground,  but  that  sin  infatuates  before  it  destroys.  For 
Judas  to  receive  and  swallow  the  sop,  when  his  master  gave  it 
him  seasoned  with  those  terrible  words,  "  It  had  been  good  for 
that  man  that  he  had  never  been  born surely  this  argued  a 
furious  appetite  and  a  strong  stomach ;  that  could  thus  catch  at 
a  morsel,  with  the  fire  and  brimstone  all  flaming  about  it,  and,  as 
it  were,  digest  death  itself,  and  make  a  meal  upon  perdition. 

I  could  wish  that  every  bold  sinner,  when  he  is  about  to 
engage  in  the  commission  of  any  known  sin,  would  arrest  his 
confidence,  and  for  a  while  stop  the  execution  of  his  purpose, 
with  this  short  question:  Do  I  believe  that  it  is  really  true,  that 
God  has  denounced  death  to  such  a  practice,  or  do  I  not  ?  If  he 
does  not,  let  him  renounce  his  Christianity,  and  surrender  back 
his  baptism,  the  water  of  which  might  better  serve  him  to  cool 
his  tongue  in  hell,  than  only  to  consign  him  over  to  the  capacity 
of  so  black  an  apostasy.  But  if  he  does  believe  it,  how  will  he 
acquit  himself  upon  the  accounts  of  bare  reason  ?  For  does  he 
think,  that  if  he  pursues  the  means  of  death,  they  will  not  bring 
him  to  that  fatal  end  ?  Or  does  he  think  that  he  can  grapple 
with  divine  vengeance,  and  endure  the  everlasting  burning's,  or 
arm  himself  against  the  bites  of  the  never  dying  worm?  No, 
surely,  these  are  things  not  to  be  imagined  ;  and  therefore  I  can- 
not conceive  what  security  the  presuming  sinner  can  promise 
himself,  but  upon  these  two  following  accounts  : 

1.  That  God  is  merciful,  and  will  not  be  so  severe  as  his 
word ;  and  that  his  threatenings  of  eternal  torments  are  not 
so  decretory  and  absolute,  but  that  there  is  a  very  comfortable 
latitude  left  in  them  for  men  of  skill  to  creep  out  at.  And  here 
it  must  indeed  be  confessed,  that  Origen,  and  some'  others,  not 
long  since,  who  have  been  so  officious  as  to  furbish  up  and  re- 
print his  old  errors,  hold,  that  the  sufferings  of  the  damned  are 
not  to  be,  in  a  strict  sense,  eternal ;  but  that,  after  a  certain  re- 
volution and  period  of  time,  there  shall  be  a  general  gaol-delivery 
of  the  souls  in  prison,  and  that  not  for  a  further  execution,  but  a 
final  release.  And  it  must  be  further  acknowledged,  that  some 
of  the  ancients,  like  kind-hearted  men,  have  talked  much  of 
annual  refrigeriums,  respites,  or  intervals  of  punishment  to  the 
damned,  as  particularly  on  the  great  festivals  of  the  resurrection, 
ascension,  pentecost,  and  the  like.  In  which,  as  these  good  men 
are  more  to  be  commended  for  their  kindness  and  compassion, 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  RELIGION  ENFORCED  BY  REASON.  211 

than  to  be  followed  in  their  opinion,  which  may  be  much  better 
argued  by  wishes  than  demonstrations  ;  so  admitting  that  it  were 
true,  yet  what  a  pitiful,  slender  comfort  would  this  amount  to? 
Much  like  the  Jewrs  abating  the  punishment  of  malefactors  from 
forty  stripes,  to  forty  save  one.  A  great  indulgence  indeed, 
even  as  great  as  the  difference  between  forty  and  thirty-nine ; 
and  yet  much  less  considerable  would  that  indulgence  be,  of  a 
tew  holydays  in  the  measures  of  eternity,  of  some  hours'  ease, 
compared  with  infinite  ages  of  torment. 

Supposing,  therefore,  that  few  sinners  relieve  themselves  with 
such  groundless,  trifling  considerations  as  these :  yet  may  they 
not  however  fasten  a  rational  hope  upon  the  boundless  mercy  of* 
God,  that  this  may  induce  him  to  spare  his  poor  creature,  though 
by  sin  become  obnoxious  to  his  wrath  ?  To  this  I  answer,  That 
the  divine  mercy  is  indeed  large,  and  far  surpassing  all  created 
measures ;  yet  nevertheless  it  has  its  proper  time  ;  and  after  this 
life  it  is  the  time  of  justice  ;  and  to  hope  for  the  favours  of  mercy 
then,  is  to  expect  a  harvest  in  the  dead  of  winter.  God  has  cast 
all  his  works  into  a  certain,  inviolable  order ;  according  to  which, 
there  is  a  time  to  pardon  and  a  time  to  punish  ;  and  the  time  of 
one  is  not  the  time  of  the  other.  When  corn  has  once  felt  the 
sickle,  it  has  no  more  benefit  from  the  sunshine.  But, 

2.  If  the  conscience  be  too  apprehensive,  as  for  the  most  part 
it  is,  to  venture  the  final  issue  of  things  upon  a  fond  persua- 
sion, that  the  great  Judge  of  the  world  will  relent,  and  not 
execute  the  sentence  pronounced  by  him ;  as  if  he  had  threatened 
men  with  hell,  rather  to  fright  them  from  sin,  than  with  an 
intent  to  punish  them  for  it ;  I  say,  if  the  conscience  cannot  find 
any  satisfaction  or  support  from  such  reasonings  as  these,  yet  may 
it  not  at  least  relieve  itself  with  the  purposes  of  a  future  repen- 
tance, notwithstanding  its  present  actual  violations  of  the  lawr  ? 
I  answer,  that  this  certainly  is  a  confidence,  of  all  others  the 
most  ungrounded  and  irrational.  For  upon  what  ground  can  a 
man  promise  himself  a  future  repentance,  who  cannot  promise 
himself  a  futurity ;  whose  life  depends  upon  his  breath,  and  is  so 
restrained  to  the  present,  that  it  cannot  secure  to  itself  the  rever- 
sion of  the  very  next  minute  ?  Have  not  many  died  with  the 
^ruilt  of  impenitence,  and  the  designs  of  repentance  together  ?  If 
a  mail  dies  to-day,  by  the  prevalence  of  some  ill  humours,  will  it 
avail  him  that  he  intended  to  have  bled  and  purged  to-morrow  ? 

But  how  dares  sinful  dust  and  ashes  invade  the  prerogative  of 
Proviuence,  and  carve  out  to  himself  the  seasons  and  issues  of 
life  and  death,  which  the  Father  keeps  wholly  within  his  own 
power?  How  does  that  man,  who  thinks  he  sins  securely  under 
the  shelter  of  some  remote  purposes  of  amendment,  know,  but 
that  the  decree  above  may  be  already  passed  against  him,  and  his 
allowance  of  mercy  spent ;  so  that  the  bow  in  the  clouds  is  now 
drawn,  and  the  arrow  levelled  at  his  head ;  and  not  many  days 


212 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIIJ. 


like  to  pass,  but  perhaps  an  apoplexy,  or  an  imposthume,  or  some 
sudden  disaster  may  stop  his  breath,  and  reap  him  down  as  a 
sinner  ripe  for  destruction  ? 

I  conclude  therefore,  that,  upon  supposition  of  the  certain 
truth  of  the  principles  of  religion,  he  who  walks  not  uprightly, 
has  neither  from  the  presumption  of  God's  mercy  reversing  the 
decree  of  his  justice,  nor  from  his  own  purposes  of  a  future  re- 
pentance, any  sure  ground  to  set  his  foot  upon ;  but  in  this 
whole  course  acts  as  directly  in  contradiction  to  nature,  as  he 
does  in  defiance  of  grace.  In  a  word,  he  is  besotted,  and  has  lost 
his  reason ;  and  what  then  can  there  be  for  religion  to  take  hold 
of  him  by  ?    Come  we  now  to  the 

II.  Supposition,  under  which  we  show,  that  the  principles  of 
religion  laid  down  by  us  might  be  considered  ;  and  that  is,  as 
only  probable.  Where  we  must  observe,  that  probability  does  not 
properly  make  any  alteration,  either  in  the  truth  or  falsity  of 
things ;  but  only  imports  a  different  degree  of  their  clearness  or 
appearance  to  the  understanding.  So  that  it  is  to  be  accounted 
probable,  which  has  more  and  better  arguments  producible  for  it, 
than  can  be  brought  against  it ;  and  surely  such  a  thing  at  least 
is  religion.  For  certain  it  is,  that  religion  is  universal,  I  mean, 
the  first  rudiments  and  general  notions  of  religion,  called  natural 
religion,  and  consisting  in  the  acknowledgment  of  a  Deity,  and  of 
the  common  principles  of  morality,  and  a  future  estate  of  souls 
after  death  (in  which  also  we  have  all  that  some  reformers  and 
refiners  amongst  us,  would  reduce  Christianity  itself  to).  This 
notion  of  religion,  I  say,  has  diffused  itself  in  some  degree  or 
other,  greater  or  less,  as  far  as  human  nature  extends:  so  that 
there  is  no  nation  in  the  world,  though  plunged  into  never 
such  gross  and  absurd  idolatry,  but  has  some  awful  sense  of  a 
Deity,  and  a  persuasion  of  a  state  of  retribution  to  men  after 
this  life. 

But  now,  if  there  are  really  no  such  things,  but  all  is  a  niece 
lie  and  a  fable,  contrived  only  to  chain  up  the  liberty  of  man's 
nature  from  a  freer  enjoyment  of  those  tilings,  which  otherwise 
it  would  have  as  full  a  right  to  enjoy  as  to  breathe :  I  demand 
whence  this  persuasion  could  thus  come  to  be  universal?  For 
was  it  ever  known,  in  any  other  instance,  that  the  whole  world 
was  brought  to  conspire  in  the  belief  of  a  lie  ?  Nay,  and  of  such 
a  lie,  as  should  lay  upon  men  such  unpleasing  abridgments,  tying 
them  up  from  a  full  gratification  of  those  lusts  and  appetites, 
which  they  so  impatiently  desire  to  satisfy,  and  consequently,  by 
all  means,  to  remove  those  impediments  that  might  any  way  ob- 
struct their  satisfaction  ?  Since  therefore  it  cannot  be  made  out, 
upon  any  principle  of  reason,  how  all  the  nations  in  the  world, 
otherwise  so  distant  in  situation,  manners,  interests,  and  inclina- 
tion, should  by  design  or  combination,  meet  in  one  persuasion ; 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  RELIGION  ENFORCED  BY  REASON.  213 

and  withal,  that  men,  who  so  mortally  hate  to  be  deceived  and 
imposed  upon,  should  yet  suffer  themselves  to  be  deceived  by 
such  a  persuasion  as  is  false ;  and  not  only  false,  but  also  cross 
and  contrary  to  their  strongest  desires;  so  that  if  it  were  false, 
they  would  set  the  utmost  force  of  their  reason  on  work  to  dis- 
cover that  falsity,  and  thereby  disenthral  themselves  :  and  further, 
since  there  is  nothing  false,  but  what  may  be  proved  to  be  so; 
and  yet,  lastly,  since  all  the  power  and  industry  of  man's  mind 
has  not  been  hitherto  able  to  prove  a  falsity  in  the  principles  of 
religion,  it  irrefragably  follows, — and  that,  I  suppose,  without 
gathering  any  more  into  the  conclusion,  than  has  been  made  good 
in  the  premises, — that  religion  is,  at  least,  a  very  high  probability. 

And  this  is  that  which  I  here  contend  for,  that  it  is  not 
necessary  to  the  obliging  men  to  believe  religion  to  be  true,  that 
this  truth  be  made  out  to  their  reason,  by  arguments  demonstra- 
tively certain  ;  but  that  it  is  sufficient  to  render  their  unbelief 
unexcusable,  even  upon  the  account  of  bare  reason,  if  so  be  the 
truth  of  religion  carry  in  it  a  much  greater  probability,  than  any 
of  those  ratiocinations  that  pretend  the  contrary ;  and  this  I 
prove  in  the  strength  of  these  two  considerations. 

1.  That  no  man,  in  matters  of  this  life,  requires  an  assur- 
ance either  of  the  good  which  he  designs,  or  of  the  evil  which  he 
avoids,  from  arguments  demonstratively  certain  ;  but  judges  him- 
self to  have  sufficient  ground  to  act  upon,  from  a  probable  per- 
suasion of  the  event  of  things.  No  man,  who  first  traffics  into  a 
foreign  country,  has  any  scientific  evidence  that  there  is  such  a 
country,  but  by  report,  which  can  produce  no  more  than  a  moral 
certainty ;  that  is,  a  very  high  probability,  and  such  as  there  can 
be  no  reason  to  except  against.  He  who  has  a  probable  belief, 
that  he  shall  meet  with  thieves  in  such  a  road,  thinks  himself  to 
have  reason  enough  to  decline  it,  albeit  he  is  sure  to  sustain  some 
less  •  (though  yet  considerable)  inconvenience  by  his  so  doing. 
But  perhaps  it  may  be  replied,  and  it  is  all  that  can  be  replied, 
that  a  greater  assurance  and  evidence  is  required  of  the  things 
and  concerns  of  the  other  world,  than  of  the  interests  of  this. 
To  which  I  answer,  that  assurance  and  evidence  (terms,  by  the 
way,  extremely  different ;  the  first  respecting  properly  the  ground 
of  our  assenting  to  a  thing;  and  the  other,  the  clearness  of  the 
thing  or  object  assented  to)  have  no  place  at  all  here,  as  being 
contrary  to  our  present  supposition ;  according  to  which,  we  are 
now  treating  of  the  practical  principles  of  religion  only  as  proba- 
ble, and  falling  under  a  probable  persuasion.  And  for  this  I 
affirm,  that  where  the  case  is  about  the  hazarding  an  eternal  or  a 
temporal  concern,  there  a  less  degree  of  probability  ought  to  en- 
gage our  caution  against  the  loss  of  the  former,  than  is  necessary 
to  engage  it  about  preventing  the  loss  of  the  latter.  Forasmuch 
as  where  things  are  least  to  be  put  to  the  venture,  as  the  eternal 
interests  of  the  other  world  ought  to  be ;  there  every,  even,  the 


214 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIII. 


least  probability,  or  likelihood  of  danger,  should  be  provided 
against;  but  where  the  loss  can  be  but  temporal,  every  small 
probability  of  it  need  not  put  us  so  anxiously  to  prevent  it,  since 
though  it  should  happen,  the  loss  might  be  repaired  again ;  or,  if 
not,  could  not  however  destroy  us,  by  reaching  us  in  our  greatest 
and  highest  concern ;  which  no  temporal  thing  whatsoever  is  or 
can  be.    And  this  directly  introduces  the 

2.  Consideration  or  argument,  viz.  That  bare  reason,  dis- 
coursing upon  a  principle  of  self-preservation,  which  surely  is  the 
fundamental  principle  which  nature  proceeds  by,  will  oblige  a 
man  voluntarily  and  by  choice  to  undergo  any  less  evil,  to  secure 
himself  but  from  the  probability  of  an  evil  incomparably  greater; 
and  that  also  such  a  one,  as,  if  that  probability  passes  into  a  cer- 
tain event,  admits  of  no  reparation  by  any  after  remedy  that  can 
be  applied  to  it. 

Now,  that  religion,  teaching  a  future  estate  of  souls,  is  a  proba- 
bility, and  that  its  contrary  cannot  with  equal  probability  be 
proved,  we  have  already  evinced.  This  therefore  being  supposed, 
we  will  suppose  yet  further,  that  for  a  man  to  abridge  himself  in 
the  full  satisfaction  of  his  appetites  and  inclinations,  is  an  evil, 
because  a  present  pain  and  trouble.  But  then  it  must  be  like- 
wise granted,  that  nature  must  needs  abhor  a  state  of  eternal  pain 
and  misery  much  more  ;  and  that  if  a  man  does  not  undergo  the 
former  less  evil,  it  is  highly  probable  that  such  an  eternal  estate  of 
misery  will  be  his  portion.  And  if  so,  I  would  fain  know  whether 
that  man  takes  a  rational  course  to  preserve  himself,  who  refuses 
the  endurance  of  these  lesser  troubles,  to  secure  himself  from  a 
condition  infinitely  and  inconceivably  more  miserable. 

But  since  probability,  in  the  nature  of  it,  supposes  that  a  thing 
may  or  may  not  be  so,  for  any  thing  that  yet  appears  or  is  cer- 
tainly determined  on  either  side ;  we  will  here  consider  both  sides 
of  this  probability.  As, 

(1.)  That  it  is  one  way  possible,  that  there  may  be  no  such 
thing  as  a  future  estate  of  happiness  or  misery  for  those  who 
have  lived  well  or  ill  here  ;  and  then  he  who,  upon  the  strength 
of  a  contrary  belief,  abridged  himself  in  the  gratification  of  his 
appetites,  sustains  only  this  evil;  viz.  that  he  did  not  please  his 
senses  and  unbounded  desires,  so  much  as  otherwise  he  might 
and  would  have  done,  had  he  not  lived  under  the  captivity  and 
check  of  such  a  belief.  This  is  the  utmost  which  he  suffers ; 
but  whether  this  be  a  real  evil  or  no  (whatsoever  vulgar  minds 
mav  commonly  think  it)  shall  be  discoursed  of  afterwards. 

(2.)  But  then  again,  on  the  other  side,  it  is  probable  that  there 
will  be  such  a  future  estate ;  and  then,  how  miserable  is  the  vo- 
luptuous, sensual  unbeliever  left  in  the  lurch !  For  there  can  be 
no  retreat  for  him  then,  no  mending  of  his  choice  in  the  other 
world,  no  after  game  to  be  played  in  hell.  It  fares  with  men  in 
reference  to  their  future  estate   and  the  condition  upon  which 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  RELIGION  ENFORCED  BY  REASON.  215 

they  must  pass  to  it,  much  as  it  does  with  a  merchant  having  a 
vessel  richly  fraught  at  sea  in  a  storm  :  the  storm  grows  higher 
and  higher,  and  threatens  the  utter  loss  of  the  ship  ;  but  there  is 
one,  and  but  one  certain  way  to  save  it,  which  is,  by  throwing  its 
rich  lading  over-board ;  yet  still,  for  all  this,  the  man  knows  not 
but  possibly  the  storm  may  cease,  and  so  all  be  preserved. 
However  in  the  mean  time,  there  is  little  or  no  probability  that 
it  will  do  so ;  and  in  case  it  should  not,  he  is  then  assured,  that 
he  must  lay  his  life,  as  well  as  his  rich  commodities,  in  the  cruel 
deep.  Now  in  this  case,  would  this  man,  think  we,  act  rationally, 
should  he,  upon  the  slender  possibility  of  escaping  otherwise, 
neglect  the  sure,  infallible  preservation  of  his  life,  by  casting 
away  his  rich  goods?  No  certainly,  it  would  be  so  far  from  it, 
that  should  the  storm,  by  a  strange  hap,  cease  immediately  after 
he  has  thus  thrown  away  his  riches ;  yet  the  throwing  them  away 
was  infinitely  more  rational  and  eligible,  than  the  retaining  or 
keeping  them  could  have  been. 

For  a  man,  while  he  lives  here  in  the  world,  to  doubt  whether 
there  be  any  hell  or  no ;  and  thereupon  to  live  so,  as  if  absolute- 
ly there  were  none ;  but  when  he  dies,  to  find  himself  confuted 
in  the  flames ;  this  surely  must  be  the  height  of  woe  and  dis- 
appointment, and  a  bitter  conviction  of  an  irrational  venture  and 
an  absurd  choice.  In  doubtful  cases,  reason  still  determines  for 
the  safer  side  ;  especially  if  the  case  be  not  only  doubtful,  but 
also  highly  concerning,  and  the  venture  be  of  a  soul  and  an 
eternity. 

He  who  sat  at  a  table,  richly  and  deliciously  furnished,  but 
with  a  sword  hanging  over  his  head  by  one  single  thread  or  hair, 
surely  had  enough  to  check  his  appetite,  even  against  all  the  rag- 
ing of  hunger,  and  temptations  of  sensuality.  The  only  argu- 
ment that  could  any  way  encourage  his  appetite,  was,  that  pos- 
sibly the  sword  might  not  fall ;  but  when  his  reason  should 
encounter  it  with  another  question,  What  if  it  should  fall  ?  And 
moreover,  that  pitiful  stay  by  which  it  hung,  should  oppose  the 
likelihood  that  it  would,  to  a  mere  possibility  that  it  might  not; 
what  could  the  man  enjoy  or  taste  of  his  rich  banquet,  with  all 
this  doubt  and  horror  working  in  his  mind  ? 

Though  a  man's  condition  should  be  really  in  itself  never  so 
safe,  yet  an  apprehension  and  surmise  that  it  is  not  safe,  is  enough 
to  make  a  quick  and  a  tender  reason  sufficiently  miserable.  Let 
the  most  acute  and  learned  unbeliever  demonstrate  that  there  is 
no  hell ;  and  if  he  can,  he  sins  so  much  the  more  rationally : 
otherwise  if  he  cannot,  the  case  remains  doubtful  at  least.  But 
he  who  sins  obstinately,  does  not  act  as  if  it  were  so  much  as 
doubtful ;  for  if  it  were  certain  and  evident  to  sense,  he  could 
do  no  more  ;  but  for  a  man  to  found  a  confident  practice  upon  a 
disputable  principle,  is  brutishly  to  outrun  his  reason,  and  to 
build  ten  times  wider  than  his  foundation.    In  a  word,  I  look 


216 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIII. 


upon  this  one  short  consideration,  were  there  no  more,  as  a  suffi- 
cient ground  for  any  rational  man  to  take  up  his  religion  upon, 
and  which  I  defy  the  subtlest  atheist  in  the  world  solidly  to  an- 
swer or  confute ;  namely,  that  it  is  good  to  be  sure.  And  so  I 
proceed  to  the 

III.  And  last  supposition:  under  which  the  principles  of  reli- 
gion may,  for  argument  sake,  be  considered ;  and  that  is,  as 
false ;  which  surely  must  reach  the  utmost  thoughts  of  any  atheist 
whatsoever.  Nevertheless  even  upon  this  account  also,  I  doubt 
not  but  to  evince,  that  he  who  walks  uprightly,  walks  much  more 
surely,  than  the  wicked  and  profane  liver ;  and  that  with  reference 
to  the  most  valued  temporal  enjoyments,  such  as  are  reputation, 
quietness,  health,  and  the  like,  which  are  the  greatest  which  this 
life  affords,  or  is  desirable  for.  And, 

1.  For  reputation  or  credit.  Is  any  one  had  in  greater  esteem 
than  the  just  person;  who  has  given  the  world  an  assurance,  by 
the  constant  tenor  of  his  practice,  that  he  makes  a  conscience  of 
his  ways  ?  that  he  scorns  to  do  an  unworthy  or  a  base  thing ;  to 
lie,  to  defraud,  or  undermine  another's  interest,  by  any  sinister 
and  inferior  arts?  and  is  there  any  thing  which  reflects  a  greater 
lustre  upon  a  man's  person,  than  a  severe  temperance,  and  a  re- 
straint of  himself  from  vicious  and  unlawful  pleasures?  Does 
any  thing  shine  so  bright  as  virtue,  and  that  even  in  the  eyes  of 
those  who  are  void  of  it?  for  hardly  shall  you  find  any  one  so 
bad,  but  he  desires  the  credit  of  being  thought  what  his  vice  will 
not  let  him  be :  so  great  a  pleasure  and  convenience  is  it,  to  live 
with  honour  and  a  fair  acceptance  amongst  those  whom  we  con- 
verse with :  and  a  being  without  it  is  not  life,  but  rather  the 
skeleton  or  caput  mortuum  of  life ;  like  time  without  day,  or  day 
itself  without  the  shining  of  the  sun  to  enliven  it. 

On  the  other  side,  is  there  any  thing  that  more  embitters  all 
the  enjoyments  of  this  life  than  shame  and  reproach?  yet  this  is 
generally  the  lot  and  portion  of  the  impious  and  irreligious ;  and 
of  some  of  them  more  especially. 

For  how  infamous,  in  the  first  place,  is  the  false,  fraudulent, 
and  unconscionable  person!  and  how  quickly  is  his  character 
known !  for  hardly  ever  did  any  man  of  no  conscience  continue  a 
man  of  any  credit  long.  Likewise,  how  odious,  as  well  as  infa- 
mous, is  such  a  one !  especially  if  he  be  arrived  at  that  consum- 
mate and  robust  degree  of  falsehood,  as  to  play  in  and  out,  and 
show  tricks  with  oaths,  the  sacredest  bonds  which  the  conscience 
of  man  can  be  bound  with ;  how  is  such  a  one  shunned  and 
dreaded  like  a  walking  pest!  what  volleys  of  scoffs,  curses,  and 
satires  are  discharged  at  him!  so  that  let  never  so  much  honour 
be  placed  upon  him,  it  cleaves  not  to  him,  but  forthwith  ceases  to 
be  honour,  by  being  so  placed  ;  no  preferment  can  sweeten  him, 
but  the  higher  he  stands,  the  further  and  wider  he  stinks. 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  RELIGION  ENFORCED  BY  REASON.  217 


In  like  manner,  for  the  drinker,  and  debauched  person :  is  any 
thing  more  the  object  of  scorn  and  contempt  than  such  a  one  ? 
his  company  is  justly  looked  upon  as  a  disgrace :  and  nobody  can 
own  a  friendship  for  him  without  being  an  enemy  to  himself.  A 
drunkard  is,  as  it  were,  outlawed  from  aH  worthy  and  creditable 
converse.  Men  abhor,  loathe,  and  despise,  and  would  even  spit 
at  him  as  they  meet  him,  were  it  not  for  fear  that  a  stomach  so 
charged  should  something  more  than  spit  at  them. 

But  now  to  go  over  all  the  several  kinds  of  vice  and  wicked- 
ness, should  we  set  aside  the  considerations  of  the  glories  of  a 
better  world,  and  allow  this  life  for  the  only  place  and  scene  of 
man's  happiness  ;  yet  surely  Cato  will  be  always  more  honourable 
than  Clodius,  and  Cicero  than  Catiline.  Fidelity,  justice,  and 
temperance  will  always  draw  their  own  reward  after  them,  or  ra- 
ther carry  it  with  them,  in  those  marks  of  honour  which  they  fix 
upon  the  persons  who  practise  and  pursue  them.  It  is  said  of 
David,  in  1  Chron.  xxix.  28,  -  That  he  died  full  of  days,  riches, 
and  honour:"  and  there  was  no  need  of  a  heaven,  to  render  him 
in  all  respects  a  much  happier  man  than  Saul.    But  in  the 

2.  Place,  the  virtuous  and  religious  person  walks  upon  surer 
grounds  than  the  vicious  and  irreligious  in  respect  to  the  ease, 
peace,  and  quietness  which  he  enjoys  in  this  world  ;  and  which 
certainly  make  no  small  part  of  human  felicity.  For  anxiety 
and  labour  are  great  ingredients  of  that  curse  which  sin  has  en- 
tailed upon  fallen  man.  Care  and  toil  came  into  the  world  with 
sin,  and  remain  ever  since  inseparable  from  it,  both  as  to  its 
punishment  and  effect.  The  service  of  sin  is  perfect  slavery ;  and 
he  who  will  pay  obedience  to  the  commands  of  it,  shall  find  it  an 
unreasonable  taskmaster,  and  an  unmeasurable  exactor. 

And  to  represent  the  case  in  some  particulars.  The  ambitious 
person  must  rise  early  and  sit  up  late,  and  pursue  his  design  with 
a  constant,  indefatigable  attendance  ;  he  must  be  infinitely  patient 
and  servile,  and  obnoxious  to  all  the  cross  humours  of  those  whom 
he  expects  to  rise  by ;  he  must  endure  and  digest  all  sorts  of  af- 
fronts: adore  the  foot  that  kicks  him,  and  kiss  the  hand  that 
strikes  him ;  while,  in  the  mean  time,  the  humble  and  contented 
man  is  virtuous  at  a  much  easier  rate :  his  virtue  bids  him  sleep, 
and  take  his  rest,  while  the  other's  restless  sin  bids  him  sit  up  and 
watch.  He  pleases  himself  innocently  and  easily,  while  the  am- 
bitious man  attempts  to  please  others  sinfully  and  difficultly,  and 
perhaps,  in  the  issue,  unsuccessfully  too. 

The  robber,  and  man  of  rapine,  must  run,  and  ride,  and  use  all 
the  dangerous  and  even  desperate  ways  of  escape  ;  and  probably, 
after  all,  his  sin  betrays  him  to  a  gaol,  and  from  thence  advances 
him  to  the  gibbet.  But  let  him  carry  off  his  boot}-'  with  as  much 
safety  and  success  as  he  can  wish,  yet  the  innocent  person,  with 
never  so  little  of  his  own,  envies  him  not,  and,  if  he  has  nothing, 
fears  him  not. 

Vol.  I.- -28  T 


218 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIII. 


Likewise  the  cheat  and  fraudulent  person  is  put  to  a  thousand 
shifts  to  palliate  his  fraud,  and  to  be  thought  an  honest  man :  but 
surely  there  can  be  no  greater  labour  than  to  be  always  dissem- 
bling, and  forced  to  maintain  a  constant  disguise,  there  being  so 
many  ways  by  which  a  smothered  truth  is  apt  to  blaze  and  break 
out;  the  very  nature  of  things  making  it  not  more  natural  for 
them  to  be,  than  to  appear  as  they  be.  But  he  who  will  be  really 
honest,  just,  and  sincere  in  his  dealings,  needs  take  no  pains  to  be 
thought  so ;  no  more  than  the  sun  need  take  any  pains  to  shine, 
or  when  he  is  up,  to  convince  the  world  that  it  is  day. 

And  here  again,  to  bring  in  the  man  of  luxury  and  intem- 
perance for  his  share  in  the  pain  and  trouble,  as  well  as  in  the 
forementioned  shame  and  infamy  of  his  vice :  can  any  toil  or 
day-labour  equal  the  fatigue  or  drudgery  which  such  a  one  under- 
goes, while  he  is  continually  pouring  in  draught  after  draught,  and 
cramming  in  morsel  after  morsel,  and  that  in  spite  of  appetite 
and  nature,  till  he  becomes  a  burden  to  the  very  earth  that  bears 
him ;  though  not  so  great  a  one  to  that,  but  that,  if  possible,  he 
is  yet  a  greater  to  himself?  * 

And  now,  in  the  last  place,  to  mention  one  sinner  more,  and 
him  a  notable,  leading  sinner  indeed,  to  wit,  the  rebel.  Can  any 
thing  have  more  of  trouble,  hazard,  and  anxiety  in  it,  than  the 
course  which  he  takes  ?  For  in  the  first  place,  all  the  evils  of  war 
must  unavoidably  be  endured,  as  the  necessary  means  and  instru- 
ments to  compass  and  give  success  to  his  traitorous  designs.  In 
which,  if  it  is  his  lot  to  be  conquered,  he  must  expect  that 
vengeance  that  justly  attends  a  conquered,  disarmed  villain;  for 
when  such  a  one  is  vanquished,  his  sins  are  always  upon  him. 
But  if,  on  the  contrary,  he  proves  victorious,  he  will  yet  find 
misery  enough  in  the  distracting  cares  of  settling  an  ungrounded, 
odious,  detestable  interest,  so  heartily,  and  so  justly  maligned, 
abhorred,  and  sometimes  plotted  against ;  so  that,  in  effect,  he  is 
still  in  war,  though  he  has  quitted  the  field.  The  torment  of  his 
suspicion  is  great,  and  the  courses  he  must  take  to  quiet  his 
jealous,  suspicious  mind,  infinitely  troublesome  and  vexatious. 

But,  in  the  mean  time,  the  labour  of  obedience,  loyalty,  and 
subjection,  is  no  more,  but  for  a  man  honestly  and  discreetly  to 
sit  still,  and  to  enjoy  what  he  has,  under  the  protection  of  the 
laws.  And  when  such  a  one  is  in  his  lowest  condition,  he  is  yet 
high  and  happy  enough  to  despise  and  pity  the  most  prosperous 
rebel  in  the  world;  even  those  famous  ones  of  forty-one  (with 
all  due  respect  to  their  flourishing  relations  be  it  spoken)  not 
excepted.    In  the 

Third  and  last  place,  the  religious  person  walks  upon  surer 
grounds  than  the  irreligious,  in  respect  of  the  very  health  of  his 
body.    Virtue  is  a  friend  and  a  help  to  nature,  but  it  is  vice  and 


*  See  pages  10,  11,  of  this  volume. 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  RELIGION  ENFORCED  BY  REASON.  219 

luxury  that  destroy  it,  and  the  diseases  of  intemperance  are  the 
natural  product  of  the  sins  of  intemperance.  Whereas,  on  the 
other  side,  a  temperate,  innocent  use  of  the  creature,  never  casts 
any  one  into  a  fever  or  a  surfeit.  Chastity  makes  no  work  for  a 
chirurgeon,  nor  ever  ends  in  rottenness  of  bones.  Sin  is  the 
fruitful  parent  of  distempers,  and  ill  lives  occasion  good  physi- 
cians. Seldom  shall  one  see  in  cities,  courts,  and  rich  families, 
where  men  live  plentifully,  and  eat  and  drink  freely,  that  perfect 
health,  that  athletic  soundness  and  vigour  of  constitution,  which 
is  commonly  seen  in  the  country  in  poor  houses  and  cottages, 
where  nature  is  their  cook,  and  necessity  their  caterer,  and  where 
they  have  no  other  doctor  but  the  sun  and  the  fresh  air,  and  that 
such  a  one  as  never  sends  them  to  the  apothecary.  It  has  been 
observed  in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  church,  that  none  lived  such 
healthful  and  long  lives  as  monks  and  hermits,  who  had  seques- 
tered themselves  from  the  pleasures  and  plenties  of  the  world  to 
a  constant  ascetic  course  of  the  severest  abstinence  and  devotion. 

Nor  is  excess  the  only  thing  by  which  sin  mauls  and  breaks 
men  in  their  health,  and  the  comfortable  enjoyment  of  themselves 
thereby,  but  many  are  also  brought  to  a  very  ill  and  languishing 
habit  of  body  by  mere  idleness ;  and  idleness  is  both  itself  a 
great  sin,  and  the  cause  of  many  more.  The  husbandman  returns 
from  the  field,  and  from  manuring  his  ground  strong  and  healthy, 
because  innocent  and  laborious ;  you  will  find  no  diet-drinks,  no 
boxes  of  pills,  nor  gallipots,  amongst  his  provisions ;  no,  he 
neither  speaks  nor  lives  French,  he  is  not  so  much  a  gentleman, 
forsooth.  His  meals  are  coarse  and  short,  his  employment 
warrantable,  his  sleep  certain  and  refreshing,  neither  interrupted 
with  the  lashes  of  a  guilty  mind,  nor  the  aches  of  a  crazy  body. 
And  when  old  age  comes  upon  him,  it  comes  alone,  bringing  no 
other  evil  with  it  but  itself;  but  when  it  comes  to  wait  upon  a 
v  great  and  worshipful  sinner,  who  for  many  years  together  has 
had  the  reputation  of  eating  well  and  doing  ill,  it  comes  (as  it 
ought  to  do  to  a  person  of  such  quality)  attended  with  a  long 
train  and  retinue  of  rheums,  coughs,  catarrhs,  and  dropsies, 
together  with  many  painful  girds  and  achings,  which  are  at  least 
called  the  gout.  How  does  such  a  one  go  about,  or  is  carried 
rather,  with  his  body  bending  inward,  his  head  shaking,  and  his 
eyes  always  watering  (instead  of  weeping)  for  the  sins  of  his  ill- 
spent  youth !  In  a  word,  old  age  seizes  upon  such  a  person,  like 
fire  upon  a  rotten  house ;  it  was  rotten  before,  and  must  have 
fallen  of  itself;  so  that  it  is  no  more  but  one  ruin  preventing 
another. 

And  thus  I  have  shown  the  fruits  and  effects  of  sin  upon  men 
in  this  world.  But  peradventure  it  will  be  replied,  that  there 
are  many  sinners  who  escape  all  these  calamities,  and  neither 
labour  under  any  shame  or  disrepute,  any  unquietness  of  condi- 
tion, or  more  than  ordinary  distemper  of  body,  but  pass  their 


220 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIII. 


days  with  as  great  a  portion  of  honour,  ease,  and  health,  as  any 
other  man  whatsoever.    But  to  this  I  answer, 

First,  That  those  sinners  who  are  in  such  a  temporally  happy 
condition,  owe  it  not  to  their  sins,  but  wholly  to  their  luck,  and 
a  benign  chance,  that  they  are  so.  Providence  often  disposes  of 
things  by  a  method  beside  and  above  the  discoveries  of  man's 
reason. 

Secondly,  That  the  number  of  those  sinners,  who  by  their 
sins  have  been  directly  plunged  into  all  the  forementioned  evils, 
is  incomparably  greater  than  the  number  of  those  who,  by  the 
singular  favour  of  Providence,  have  escaped  them.  And, 

Thirdly,  and  lastly,  That  notwithstanding  all  this,  sin  has  yet 
in  itself  a  natural  tendency  to  bring  men  under  all  these  evils ; 
and,  if  persisted  in,  will  infallibly  end  in  them,  unless  hindered 
by  some  unusual  accident  or  other,  which  no  man,  acting 
rationally,  can  steadily  build  upon.  It  is  not  impossible,  but  a 
man  may  practise  a  sin  secretly,  to  his  dying  day ;  but  it  is  ten 
thousand  to  one,  if  the  practice  be  constant,  but  that  some  time 
or  other  it  will  be  discovered ;  and  then  the  effect  of  sin  dis- 
covered, must  be  shame  and  confusion  to  the  sinner.  It  is  possi- 
ble also,  that  a  man  may  be  an  old  healthful  epicure;  but  I 
affirm  also,  that  it  is  next  to  a  miracle  if  he  be  so ;  and  the  like 
is  to  be  said  of  the  several  instances  of  sin  hitherto  produced  by 
us.  In  short,  nothing  can  step  between  them  and  misery  in  this 
world,  but  a  very  great,  strange,  and  unusual  chance,  which  none 
will  presume  of,  who  walk  surely. 

And  so,  I  suppose,  that  religion  cannot  possibly  be  enforced, 
even  in  the  judgment  of  its  best  friends,  and  most  professed 
enemies,  by  any  further  arguments,  than  what  have  been  pro- 
duced ;  how  much  better  soever  the  said  arguments  may  be 
managed  by  abler  hands.  For  I  have  shown  and  proved,  that 
whether  the  principles  of  it  be  certain,  or  but  probable,  nay, 
though  supposed  absolutely  false ;  yet  a  man  is  sure  of  that 
happiness  in  the  practice,  which  he  cannot  be  in  the  neglect  of 
it ;  and  consequently,  that  though  he  were  really  a  speculative 
atheist,  which  there  is  great  reason  to  believe  that  none  perfectly 
are,  yet  if  he  would  but  proceed  rationally,  that  is,  if  according 
to  his  own  measures  of  reason  he  would  but  love  himself,  be 
could  not  however  be  a  practical  atheist ;  nor  live  without  God 
in  this  world,  whether  or  no  he  expected  to  be  rewarded  by  him 
in  another. 

And  now,  to  make  some  application  of  the  foregoing  discourse, 
we  may,  by  an  easy  but  sure  deduction,  conclude  and  gather 
from  it  these  two  things : 

First,  That  that  profane,  atheistical,  epicurean  rabble,  whom 
the  whole  nation  so  rings  of,  and  who  have  lived  so  much  to  the 
defiance  of  God,  the  dishonour  of  mankind,  and  the  disgrace  of 
the  age  which  they  are  cast  upon,  are  not  indeed  (what  they  are 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  RELIGION  ENFORCED  BY  REASON.  221 

pleased  to  think  and  vote  themselves)  the  wisest  men  in  the 
world  ;  for  in  matters  of  choice,  no  man  can  be  wise  in  any  course 
or  practice  in  which  he  is  not  safe  too.  But  can  these  high  assumers, 
and  pretenders  to  reason,  prove  themselves  so,  amidst  all  those 
liberties  and  latitudes  of  practice  which  they  take  ?  Can  they 
make  it  out  against  the  common  sense  and  opinion  of  all  mankind 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  future  estate  of  misery  for  such 
as  have  lived  ill  here  ?  Or,  can  they  persuade  themselves,  that 
their  own  particular  reason,  denying  or  doubting  of  it,  ought  to 
be  relied  upon,  as  a  surer  argument  of  truth,  than  the  universal, 
united  reason  of  all  the  world  besides,  affirming  it?  Every  fool 
may  believe,  and  pronounce  confidently  ;  but  wise  men  will,  in 
matters  of  discourse,  conclude  firmly,  and,  in  matters  of  practice, 
act  surely.  And  if  these  will  do  so  too  in  the  case  now  before 
us,  they  must  prove  it  not  only  probable  (which  yet  they  can 
never  do)  but  also  certain,  and  past  all  doubt,  that  there  is  no 
hell,  nor  place  of  torment  for  the  wicked;  or  at  least,  that  they 
themselves,  notwithstanding  all  their  villanous  and  licentious 
practices,  are  not  to  be  reckoned  of  that  number  and  character ; 
but  that  with  a  non  obstante  to  all  their  revels,  their  profane- 
ness,  and  scandalous  debaucheries  of  all  sorts,  they  continue 
virtuosos  still ;  and  are  that  in  truth,  which  the  world  in  favour 
and  fashion,  or  rather  by  an  antiphrasis  is  pleased  to  call 
them. 

In  the  mean  time,  it  cannot  but  be  matter  of  just  indignation 
to  all  knowing  and  good  men,  to  see  a  company  of  lewd,  shallow- 
brained  huffs,  making  atheism  and  contempt  of  religion  the  sole 
badge  and  character  of  wit,  gallantry,  and  true  discretion ;  and 
then,  over  their  pots  and  pipes,  claiming  and  engrossing  all  these 
wholly  to  themselves;  magisterially  censuring  the  wisdom  of  all 
antiquity,  scoffing  at  all  piety,  and,  as  it  were,  new  modelling 
the  whole  world.  When  yet,  such  as  have  had  opportunity  to 
sound  these  braggers  thoroughly,  by  having  sometimes  endured 
the  penance  of  their  sottish  company,  have  found  them  in  con- 
verse so  empty  and  insipid,  in  discourse  so  trifling  and  contempt- 
ible, that  it  is  impossible  but  that  they  should  give  a  credit  and 
an  honour  to  whatsoever  and  whomsoever  they  speak  against. 
They  are,  indeed,  such  as  seem  wholly  incapable  of  entertaining 
any  design  above  the  present  gratification  of  their  palates,  and 
whose  very  soul  and  thoughts  rise  no  higher  than  their  throats ; 
but  yet  withal,  of  such  a  clamorous  and  provoking  impiety,  that 
they  are  enough  to  make  the  nation  like  Sodom  and  Gomorrah 
in  their  punishment,  as  they  have  already  made  it  too  like  them 
in  their  sins.  Certain  it  is,  that  blasphemy  and  irreligion  have 
grown  to  that  daring  height  here  of  late  years,  that  had  men  in 
any  sober,  civilized  heathen  nation,  spoken  or  done  half  so  much 
in  contempt  of  their  false  gods  and  religion,  as  some  in  our  days 
and  nation,  wearing  the  name  of  Christians,  have  spoken  and  done 

t  2 


222 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIII. 


against  God  and  Christ,  they  would  have  been  infallibly  burnt 
at  a  stake,  as  monsters  and  public  enemies  of  society. 

The  truth  is,  the  persons  here  reflected  upon  are  of  such  a 
peculiar  stamp  of  impiety,  that  they  seem  to  be  a  set  of  fellows 
got  together,  and  formed  into  a  kind  of  diabolical  society,  for  the 
finding  out  new  experiments  in  vice ;  and  therefore  they  laugh 
at  the  dull,  inexperienced,  obsolete  sinners  of  former  times ;  and 
scorning  to  keep  themselves  within  the  common,  beaten  broad 
way  to  hell,  by  being  vicious  only  at  the  low  rate  of  example 
and  imitation,  they  are  for  searching  out  other  ways  and  lati- 
tudes, and  obliging  posterity  with  unheard-of  inventions  and  dis- 
coveries in  sin  ;  resolving  herein  to  admit  of  no  other  measure  of 
good  and  evil,  but  the  judgment  of  sensuality;  as  those  who 
prepare  matters  to  their  hands,  allow  no  other  measure  of  the 
philosophy  and  truth  of  things,  but  the  sole  judgment  of  sense. 
And  these,  forsooth,  are  our  great  sages,  and  those  who  must 
pass  for  the  only  shrewd,  thinking,  and  inquisitive  men  of  the 
age ;  and  such  as  by  a  long,  severe,  and  profound  speculation  of 
nature,  have  redeemed  themselves  from  the  pedantry  of  being 
conscientious  and  living  virtuously,  and  from  such  old-fashioned 
principles  and  creeds,  as  tie  up  the  minds  of  some  narrow- 
spirited,  uncomprehensive  zealots,  who  know  not  the  world,  nor 
understand,  that  he  only  is  the  truly  wise  man,  who,  per  fas  et 
nefas,  gets  as  much  as  he  can. 

But  for  all  this,  let  atheists  and  sensualists  satisfy  themselves 
as  they  are  able;  the  former  of  these  will  find,  that  as  long  as 
reason  keeps  her  ground,  religion  neither  can  nor  will  lose  hers. 
And  for  the  sensual  epicure,  he  also  will  find,  that  there  is  a 
certain  living  spark  within  him,  which  all  the  drink  he  can  pour 
in  will  never  be  able  to  quench  or  put  out ;  '  nor  will  his  rotten 
abused  body  have  it  in  its  power  to  convey  any  putrifying,  con- 
suming, rotting  quality  to  the  soul.  No,  there  is  no  drinking, 
or  swearing,  or  ranting,  or  fluxing  a  soul  out  of  its  immortality. 
But  that  must  and  will  survive  and  abide,  in  spite  of  death  and 
the  grave ;  and  live  for  ever,  to  convince  such  wretches,  to  their 
eternal  woe,  that  the  so  much  repeated  ornament  and  flourish  of 
their  former  speeches  {God  damn  yem),  was  commonly  the  truest 
word  they  spoke,  though  least  believed  by  them  while  they 
spoke  it. 

Secondly,  The  other  thing  deducible  from  the  foregoing  par- 
ticulars, shall  be  to  inform  us  of  the  way  of  attaining  to  that 
excellent  privilege,  so  justly  valued  by  those  who  have  it,  and  so 
much  talked  of  by  those  who  have  it  not ;  which  is,  assurance. 
Assurance  is  properly  that  persuasion  or  confidence,  which  a 
man  takes  up  of  the  pardon  of  his  sins,  and  his  interest  in  God's 
favour,  upon  such  grounds  and  terms  as  the  scripture  lays  down. 
But  now,  since  the  scripture  promises  eternal  happiness  and  par- 
don of  sin,  upon  the  sole  condition  of  faith  and  sincere  obedience, 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  RELIGION  ENFORCED  BY  REASON.  223 

it  is  evident,  that  he  only  can  plead  a  title  to  such  a  pardon, 
whose  conscience  impartially  tells  him,  that  he  has  performed 
the  required  condition.  And  this  is  the  only  rational  assurance 
which  a  man  can,  with  any  safety,  rely  or  rest  himself  upon. 

He  who  in  this  case  would  believe  surely,  must  first  walk 
surely ;  and  to  do  so  is  to  walk  uprightly.  And  what  that  is, 
we  have  sufficiently  marked  out  to  us  in  those  plain  and  legible 
lines  of  duty,  requiring  us  to  demean  ourselves  to  God  humbly 
and  devoutly  ;  to  our  governors  obediently ;  and  to  our  neighbours 
justly;  and  to  ourselves  soberly  and  temperately.  All  other 
pretences  being  infinitely  vain  in  themselves,  and  fatal  in  their 
consequences. 

It  was  indeed  the  way  of  many  in  the  late  times,  to  bolster 
up  their  crazy,  doating  consciences,  with  I  know  not  what  odd 
confidences,  founded  upon  inward  whispers  of  the  spirit,  stories 
of  something  which  they  called  conversion,  and  marks  of  predes- 
tination :  all  of  them,  as  they  understood  them,  mere  delusions, 
trifles,  and  fig-leaves  ;  and  such  as  would  be  sure  to  fall  ofT  and 
leave  them  naked  before  that  fiery  tribunal,  which  knows  no 
other  way  of  judging  men,  but  according  to  their  works. 

Obedience  and  upright  walking  are  such  substantial,  vital  parts 
of  religion,  as,  if  they  be  wanting,  can  never  be  made  up,  or 
commuted  for  by  any  formalities  of  fantastic  looks  or  language. 
And  the  great  question,  when  we  come  hereafter  to  be  judged, 
will  not  be,  How  demurely  have  you  looked?  or,  how  boldly 
have  you  believed?  With  what  length  have  you  prayed?  and, 
with  what  loudness  and  vehemence  have  you  preached  ?  but, 
How  holily  have  you  lived  ?  and  how  uprightly  have  you  walked  ? 
For  this,  and  this  only,  with  the  merits  of  Christ's  righteousness, 
will  come  into  account,  before  that  great  judge,  who  will  pass 
sentence  upon  every  man  "  according  to  what  he  has  done  here 
in  the  flesh,  whether  it  be  good,  or  whether  it  be  evil;"  and 
"  there  is  no  respect  of  persons  with  him." 

To  whom  therefore  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due, 
all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  ever- 
more. Amen. 


224 


SERMON  XIV. 

OF    THE    SUPERLATIVE    LOVE    OF    CHRIST    TO    HIS  DISCIPLES. 
[Preached  before  the  University  at  Christ  Church,  Oxon,  1664.] 

John  xv.  15. 

Henceforth  I  call  you  not  servants;  for  the  servant  knoweth  not 
what  his  Lord  doeth :  but  I  have  called  you  friends ;  for  all 
things  that  I  have  iieard  of  my  Father  I  have  made  known 
unto  you. 

We  have  here  an  account  of  Christ's  friendship  to  his  disci- 
ples; that  is,  we  have  the  best  of  things  represented  in  the 
greatest  of  examples.  In  other  men  we  see  the  excellency,  but 
in  Christ  the  divinity  of  friendship.  By  our  baptism  and  church 
communion  we  are  made  one  body  with  Christ ;  but  by  this  we 
become  one  soul. 

Love  is  the  greatest  of  human  affections,  and  friendship  is  the 
noblest  and  most  refined  improvement  of  love ;  a  quality  of  the 
largest  compass.  And  it  is  here  admirable  to  observe  the  as- 
cending gradation  of  the  love  which  Christ  bore  to  his  disciples. 
The  strange  and  superlative  greatness  of  which  will  appear  from 
those  several  degrees  of  kindness  that  it  has  manifested  to  man, 
in  the  several  periods  of  his  condition.  As, 

1.  If  we  consider  him  antecedently  to  his  creation,  while  he 
yet  lay  in  the  barren  womb  of  nothing,  and  only  in  the  number 
of  possibilities;  and  consequently  could  have  nothing  to  recom- 
mend him  to  Christ's  affection,  nor  show  any  thing  lovely,  but 
what  he  should  afterwards  receive  from  the  stamp  of  a  prevent- 
ing love:  yet  even  then  did  the  love  of  Christ  begin  to  work, 
and  to  commence  in  the  first  emanations  and  purposes  of  good- 
ness towards  man ;  designing  to  provide  matter  for  itself  to  work 
upon,  to  create  its  own  object,  and  like  the  sun  in  the  production 
of  some  animals,  first  to  give  a  being,  and  then  to  shine  upon  it. 

2.  Let  us  take  the  love  of  Christ  as  directing  itself  to  man 
actually  created  and  brought  into  the  world  ;  and  so  all  those 
glorious  endowments  of  human  nature,  in  its  original  state  and 
innocence,  were  so  many  demonstrations  of  the  munificent  good- 
ness of  him,  by  whom  God  first  made,  as  well  as  afterwards  re- 
deemed the  world.    There  was  a  consult  of  the  whole  Trinity 


OF  THE  LOVE  OF  CHRIST  TO  HIS  DISCIPLES. 


225 


for  the  making  of  man  that  so  he  might  shine  as  a  masterpiece, 
not  only  of  the  art,  but  also  of  the  kindness  of  his  Creator ;  with 
a  noble  and  a  clear  understanding,  a  rightly  disposed  will,  and  a 
train  of  affections  regular  and  obsequious,  and  perfectly  conform- 
able to  the  dictates  of  that  high  and  divine  principle,  right 
reason.  So  that,  upon  the  whole  matter,  he  stepped  forth,  not 
only  the  work  of  God's  hands,  but  also  the  copy  of  his  perfec- 
tions ;  a  kind  of  image  or  representation  of  the  Deity  in  small ; 
infinity  contracted  into  flesh  and  blood ;  and,  as  I  may  so 
spaak,  the  preludium  and  first  essay  towards  the  incarnation  of  the 
divine  nature.  But, 

3.  And  lastly,  let  us  look  upon  man,  not  only  as  created,  and 
brought  into  the  world,  with  all  these  great  advantages  super- 
added to  his  being ;  but  also,  as  depraved  and  fallen  from  them ; 
as  an  outlaw  and  a  rebel,  and  one  that  could  plead  a  title  to 
nothing,  but  to  the  highest  severities  of  a  sin-revenging  justice. 
Yet  even  in  this  estate  also,  the  boundless  love  of  Christ  began 
to  have  warm  thoughts  and  actings  towards  so  wretched  a  creature ; 
at  this  time  not  only  not  amiable,  but  highly  odious. 

While  indeed  man  was  yet  uncreated  and  unborn,  though  he 
had  no  positive  perfection  to  present  and  set  him  off  to  Christ's 
view ;  yet  he  was  at  least  negatively  clear :  and,  like  unwritten 
paper,  though  it  has  no  draughts  to  entertain,  yet  neither  has  it 
any  blots  to  offend  the  eye ;  but  it  is  white,  and  innocent,  and 
fair  for  an  after  inscription.  But  man,  once  fallen,  was  nothing 
but  a  great  blur ;  nothing  but  a  total  universal  pollution,  and  not 
to  be  reformed  by  any  thing  under  a  new  creation. 

Yet,  see  here  the  ascent  and  progress  of  Christ's  love.  For 
first,  if  we  consider  man  in  such  a  loathsome  and  provoking 
condition ;  was  it  not  love  enough,  that  he  was  spared  and  per- 
mitted to  enjoy  a  being?  since,  not  to  put  a  traitor  to  death  is  a 
singular  mercy.  But  then,  not  only  to  continue  his  being,  but 
to  adorn  it  with  privilege,  and  from  the  number  of  subjects  to 
take  him  into  the  retinue  of  servants,  this  was  yet  a  greater  love. 
For  every  one  that  may  be  fit  to  be  tolerated  in  a  prince's  domi- 
nions, is  not  therefore  fit  to  be  admitted  into  his  family ;  nor  is 
any  prince's  court  to  be  commensurate  to  his  kingdom.  But  then 
further  to  advance  him  from  a  servant  to  a  friend ;  from  only 
living  in  his  house,  to  lying  in  his  bosom ;  this  is  an  instance  of 
favour  above  the  rate  of  a  created  goodness,  an  act  for  none  but 
the  Son  of  God,  who  came  to  do  every  thing  in  miracle,  to  love 
supernaturally,  and  to  pardon  infinitely,  and  even  to  lay  down  the 
Sovereign,  while  he  assumed  the  Saviour. 

The  text  speaks  the  winning  behaviour  and  gracious  conde- 
scension of  Christ  to  his  disciples,  in  owning  them  for  his  friends, 
who  were  more  than  sufficiently  honoured  by  being  his  servants. 
For  still  these  words  of  his  must  be  understood,  not  accord- 
ing to  the  bare  rigour  of  the  letter,  but  according  to  the  arts 

Vol.  I. — 29 


226 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIV. 


and  allowances  of  expression:  not  as  if  the  relation  of  friends 
had  actually  discharged  them  from  that  of  servants ;  but  that 
of  the  two  relations,  Christ  was  pleased  to  overlook  the  meaner, 
and  without  any  mention  of  that,  to  entitle  and  denominate  them 
solely  from  the  more  honourable. 

For  the  further  illustration  of  which,  we  must  premise  this, 
as  a  certain  and  fundamental  truth,  that  so  far  as  service  imports 
duty  and  subjection,  all  created  beings,  whether  men  or  angels, 
bear  the  necessary  and  essential  relation  of  servants  to  God,  and 
consequently  to  Christ,  who  is  "  God  blessed  for  ever ;"  and  this 
relation  is  so  necessary,  that  God  himself  cannot  dispense  with 
it,  nor  discharge  a  rational  creature  from  it ;  for  although  con- 
sequentially indeed  he  may  do  so,  by  the  annihilation  of  such  a 
creature,  and  the  taking  away  his  being,  yet  supposing  the  con- 
tinuance of  his  being,  God  cannot  effect,  that  a  creature  which 
has  his  being  from,  and  his  dependence  upon  him,  should  not 
stand  obliged  to  do  him  the  utmost  service  that  his  nature  en- 
ables him  to  do.  For  to  suppose  the  contrary,  would  be  irregular 
and  opposite  to  the  law  of  nature,  which,  consisting  in  a  fixed 
unalterable  relation  of  one  nature  to  another,  is,  upon  that 
account,  even  by  God  himself,  indispensable.  Forasmuch  as 
having  once  made  a  creature,  he  cannot  cause  that  that  creature 
should  not  owe  a  natural  relation  to  his  Maker,  both  of  subjec- 
tion and  dependence  (the  very  essence  of  a  creature  importing 
so  much),  to  which  relation,  if  he  behaves  himself  unsuitably,  he 
goes  contrary  to  his  nature,  and  the  laws  of  it ;  which  God,  the 
author  of  nature,  cannot  warrant  without  being  contrary  to  him- 
self. From  all  which  it  follows,  that  even  in  our  highest  estate 
of  sanctity  and  privilege,  we  yet  retain  the  unavoidable  obliga- 
tion of  Christ's  servants ;  though  still  with  an  advantage  as  great 
as  the  obligation,  where  the  service  is  perfect  freedom :  so  that 
with  reference  to  such  a  Lord,  to  serve,  and  to  be  free,  are  terms 
not  consistent  only,  but  absolutely  equivalent. 

Nevertheless,  since  the  name  of  servants  has  of  old  been 
reckoned  to  imply  a  certain  meanness  of  mind,  as  well  as  lowness 
of  condition,  and  the  ill  qualities  of  many  who  served,  have  ren- 
dered the  condition  itself  not  very  creditable ;  especially  in  those 
ages  and  places  of  the  world  in  which  the  condition  of  servants 
was  extremely  different  from  what  it  is  now  amongst  us ;  they 
being  generally  slaves,  and  such  as  were  bought  and  sold  for 
money,  and  consequently  reckoned  but  amongst  the  other  goods 
and  chatties  of  their  lord  or  master;  it  was  for  this  reason  that 
Christ  thought  fit  to  wave  the  appellation  of  servant  here,  as, 
according  to  the  common  use  of  it  amongst  the  Jews,  and  at  that 
time  most  nations  besides,  importing  these  three  qualifications, 
which,  being  directly  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  were 
by  no  means  to  be  allowed  in  any  of  Christ's  disciples, 

1.  The  first  whereof  is  that  here  mentioned   in   the  text; 


OF  THE  LOVE  OF  CHRIST  TO  HIS  DISCIPLES.  227 

namely,  an  utter  unaequaintance  with  his  master's  designs  in 
these  words :  "  The  servant  knows  not  what  his  lord  doth." 
For  seldom  does  any  man  of  sense  make  his  servant  his  coun- 
sellor, for  fear  of  making  him  his  governor  too.  A  master  for 
the  most  part  keeps  his  choicest  goods  locked  up  from  his  servant, 
but  much  more  his  mind.  A  servant  is  to  know  nothing  but  his 
master's  commands  ;  and  in  these  also,  not  to  know  the  reason  of 
them.  Neither  is  he  to  stand  aloof  off  from  his  counsels  only,  but 
sometimes  from  his  presence  also  ;  and  so  far  as  decency  is  duty, 
it  is  sometimes  his  duty-  to  avoid  him.  But  the  voice  of  Christ 
in  his  gospel  is,  "  Come  to  me,  all  ye  that  are  heavy  laden." 
The  condition  of  a  servant  staves  him  off  to  a  distance ;  but  the 
gospel  speaks  nothing  but  allurement,  attractives,  and  invitation. 
The  magisterial  law  bids  the  person  under  it,  "  Go,  and  he  must 
go:"  but  the  gospel  says  to  ever}-  believer,  "Come,  and  he 
cometh."  A  servant  dwells  remote  from  all  knowledge  of  his 
lord's  purposes,  he  lives  as  a  kind  of  foreigner  under  the  same 
roof;  a  domestic,  and  yet  a  stranger  too. 

2.  The  name  of  servant  imports  a  slavish  and  degenerate  awe 
of  mind:  as  it  is  in  Rom.  viii.  5,  "  God  has  not  given  us  the 
spirit  of  bondage  again  to  fear."  He  who  serves  has  still  the  low 
and  ignoble  restraints  of  dread  upon  his  spirit ;  which  in  business, 
and  even  in  the  midst  of  action,  cramps  and  ties  up  his  activity. 
He  fears  his  master's  anger,  but  designs  not  his  favour.  "Quicken 
me,"  says  David,  "  with  thy  free  spirit."  It  is  the  freedom  of  the 
spirit  that  gives  worth  and  life  to  the  performance.  But  a  ser- 
vant commonly  is  less  free  in  mind  than  in  condition ;  his  very 
will  seems  to  be  in  bonds  and  shackles,  and  desire  itself  under  a 
kind  of  durance  and  captivity.  In  all  that  a  servant  does  he  is 
scarce  a  voluntary  agent,  but  when  he  serves  himself:  all  his 
services  otherwise,  not  flowing  naturally  from  propensity  and  in- 
clination, but  being  drawn  and  forced  from  him  by  terror  and 
coaction.  In  any  work  he  is  put  to,  let  the  master  withdraw  his 
eye,  and  he  will  quickly  take  off  his  hand. 

3.  The  appellation  of  servant  imports  a  mercenary  temper  and 
disposition  ;  and  denotes  such  a  one,  as  makes  his  reward  both 
the  sole  motive  and  measure  of  his  obedience.  He  neither  loves 
the  thing  commanded,  nor  the  person  who  commands  it,  but  is 
wholly  and  only  intent  upon  his  own  emolument.  All  kindnesses 
done  him,  and  all  that  is  given  him  over  and  above  what  is  strictly 
just  and  his  due,  makes  him  rather  worse  than  better.  And  this 
is  an  observation  that  never  fails,  where  any  one  has  so  much 
bounty  and  so  little  wit,  as  to  make  the  experiment.  For  a  ser- 
vant rarely  or  never  ascribes  what  he  receives  to  the  mere  liber- 
ality and  generosity  of  the  donor,  but  to  his  own  worth  and 
merit,  and  to  the  need  which  he  supposes  there  is  of  him ;  which 
opinion  alone  will  be  sure  to  make  any  one  of  a  mean  servile 
spirit,  insolent  and  intolerable. 


228 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIV. 


And  thus  I  have  shown  what  the  qualities  of  a  servant  usually 
are,  or  at  least  were  in  that  country  where  our  Saviour  lived  and 
conversed,  when  he  spake  these  words,  which,  no  doubt,  were  the 
cause  why  he  would  not  treat  his  disciples,  whom  he  designed  to 
be  of  a  quite  contrary  disposition,  with  this  appellation. 

Come  we  therefore  now,  in  the  next  place,  to  show  what  is 
included  in  that  great  character  and  privilege  which  he  was 
pleased  to  vouchsafe  both  to  them  and  to  all  believers,  in  calling 
and  accounting  them  his  friends.  It  includes  in  it,  I  conceive, 
these  following  things : 

1.  Freedom  of  access.  House  and  heart,  and  all,  are  open  for 
the  reception  of  a  friend.  The  entrance  is  not  beset  with  solemn 
excuses  and  lingering  delays;  but  the  passage  is  easy,  and  free 
from  all  obstruction,  and  not  only  admits,  but  even  invites  the 
comer.  How  different,  for  the  most  part,  is  the  same  man  from 
himself,  as  he  sustains  the  person  of  a  magistrate,  and  as  he  sus- 
tains that  of  a  friend !  As  a  magistrate  or  great  officer  he  locks 
himself  up  from  all  approaches  by  the  multiplied  formalities  of 
attendance,  by  the  distance  of  ceremony  and  grandeur ;  so  many 
hungry  officers  to  be  passed  through,  so  many  thresholds  to  be 
saluted,  so  many  days  to  be  spent  in  waiting  for  an  opportunity 
of,  perhaps,  but  half  an  hour's  converse. 

But  when  he  is  to  be  entertained,  whose  friendship,  not  whose 
business,  demands  an  entrance,  those  formalities  presently  disap- 
pear, all  impediments  vanish,  and  the  rigours  of  the  magistrate 
submit  to  the  endearments  of  a  friend.  He  opens  and  yields 
himself  to  the  man  of  business  with  difficulty  and  reluctancy, 
but  offers  himself  to  the  visits  of  a  friend  with  facility,  and  all 
the  meeting  readiness  of  appetite  and  desire.  The  reception  of 
one  is  as  different  from  the  admission  of  the  other,  as  wThen  the 
earth  falls  open  under  the  incisions  of  the  plough,  and  when  it 
gapes  and  greedily  opens  itself  to  drink  in  the  dew  of  heaven,  or 
the  refreshments  of  a  shower:  or  there  is  as  much  difference 
between  them,  as  wThen  a  man  reaches  out  his  arms  to  take  up  a 
burden,  and  when  he  reaches  them  out  to  embrace. 

It  is  confessed,  that  the  vast  distance  that  sin  had  put  between 
the  offending  creature  and  the  offended  Creator,  required  the  help 
of  some  great  umpire  and  intercessor,  to  open  him  a  new  way  of 
access  to  God ;  and  this  Christ  did  for  us  as  mediator.  But  we 
read  of  no  mediator  to  bring  us  to  Christ ;  for  though,  being 
God  by  nature,  he  dwells  in  the  height  of  majesty,  and  the 
inaccessible  glories  of  a  Deity  ;  yet  to  keep  off  all  strangeness 
between  himself  and  the  sons  of  men,  he  has  condescended  to  a 
cognation  and  consanguinity  with  us,  he  has  clothed  himself  with 
flesh  and  blood,  that  so  he  might  subdue  his  glories  to  a  possi- 
bility of  human  converse.  And  therefore,  he  that  denies  himself 
an  immediate  access  to  Christ,  affronts  him  in  the  great  relation 
of  a  friend;   and  as  opening  himself  both  to  our  persons  and 


i 

OF  THE  LOVE  OF  CHRIST  TO  HIS  DISCIPLES.  229 

to  our  wants,  with  the  greatest  tenderness  and  the  freest  invi- 
tation. There  is  none  who  acts  a  friend  by  a  deputy,  or  can  be 
familiar  by  proxy. 

2.  The  second  privilege  of  friendship  is  a  favourable  construc- 
tion of  all  passages  between  friends,  that  are  not  of  so  high  and 
so  malign  a  nature  as  to  dissolve  the  relation.  "  Love  covers  a 
multitude  of  sins,"  says  the  apostle,  1  Pet.  iv.  8.  When  a  scar 
cannot  be  taken  away,  the  next  kind  office  is  to  hide  it.  Love 
is  never  so  blind,  as  when  it  is  to  spy  faults.  It  is  like  the 
painter,  who  being  to  draw  the  picture  of  a  friend  having  a  ble- 
mish in  one  eye,  would  picture  only  another  side  of  his  face.  It 
is  a  noble  and  a  great  thing  to  cover  the  blemishes  and  to  excuse 
the  failings  of  a  friend  ;  to  draw  a  curtain  before  his  stains,  and  to 
display  his  perfections  ;  to  bury  his  weaknesses  in  silence,  but  to 
proclaim  his  virtues  upon  the  housetop.  It  is  an  imitation  of  the 
charities  of  heaven,  which,  when  the  creature  lies  prostrate  in  the 
weakness  of  sleep  and  weariness,  spreads  the  covering  of  night 
and  darkness  over  it,  to  conceal  it  in  that  condition :  but  as  soon 
as  our  spirits  are  refreshed,  and  nature  returns  to  its  morning 
vigour,  God  then  bids  the  sun  rise,  and  the  day  shine  upon  us, 
both  to  advance  and  show  that  activity. 

It  is  the  ennobling  office  of  the  understanding,  to  correct  the 
fallacious  and  mistaken  reports  of  sense,  and  to  assure  us  that  the 
staff  in  the  water  is  straight,  though  our  eye  would  tell  us  it  is 
crooked.  So  it  is  the  excellency  of  friendship  to  rectify,  or  at 
least  to  qualify  the  malignity  of  those  surmises  that  would  mis- 
represent a  friend,  and  traduce  him  in  our  thoughts.  Am  I  told 
that  my  friend  has  done  me  an  injur}-,  or  that  he  has  committed 
any  undecent  action  ?  Why,  the  first  debt  that  I  both  owe  to  his 
friendship,  and  that  he  may  challenge  from  mine,  is  rather  to 
question  the  truth  of  the  report,  than  presently  to  believe  my 
friend  unworthy.  Or,  if  matter  of  fact  breaks  out  and  blazes 
with  too  great  an  evidence  to  be  denied,  or  so  much  as  doubted 
of;  why,  still  there  are  other  lenitives,  that  friendship  will  apply, 
before  it  will  be  brought  to  the  decretory  rigours  of  a  condemning 
sentence.  A  friend  will  be  sure  to  act  the  part  of  an  advocate, 
before  he  will  assume  that  of  a  judge.  And  there  are  few 
actions  so  ill,  unless  they  are  of  a  very  deep  and  black  tincture 
indeed,  but  will  admit  of  some  extenuation,  at  least  from  those 
common  topics  of  human  frailty- ;  such  as  are  ignorance  or  inad- 
vertency, passion  or  surprise,  company  or  solicitation,  with  many 
other  such  things,  which  may  go  a  great  way  towards  an  excusing 
of  the  agent,  though  they  cannot  absolutely  justify  the  action. 
All  which  apologies  for,  and  alleviations  of  faults,  though  they 
are  the  heights  of  humanity,  yet  they  are  not  the  favours,  but 
the  duties  of  friendship.  Chanty  itself  commands  us,  where  we 
know  no  ill,  to  think  well  of  all.  But  friendship,  that  always 
goes  a  pitch  higher,  gives  a  man  a  peculiar  right  and  claim  to  the 


230 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIV 


good  opinion  of  his  friend.    And  if  we  justly  look  upon  a  prone 
ness  to  find  faults,  as  a  very  ill  and  a  mean  thing,  we  are  to 
remember,  that  a  proneness  to  believe  them  is  next  to  it. 

We  have  seen  here  the  demeanour  of  friendship  between  man 
and  man  :  but  how  is  it,  think  we  now,  between  Christ  and  the 
soul  that  depends  upon  him  ?  Is  he  any  ways  short  in  these  offices 
of  tenderness  and  mitigation  ?  No,  assuredly ;  but  by  infinite 
degrees  superior.  For  where  our  heart  does  but  relent,  his 
melts ;  where  our  eye  pities,  his  bowels  yearn.  How  many 
frowardnesses  of  ours  does  he  smother,  how  many  indignities 
does  he  pass  by,  and  how  many  affronts  does  he  put  up  at  our 
hands,  because  his  love  is  invincible,  and  his  friendship  unchange- 
able !  He  rates  every  action,  every  sinful  infirmity,  with  the 
allowances  of  mercy :  and  never  weighs  the  sin,  but  together 
with  it  he  weighs  the. force  of  the  inducement;  how  much  of  it 
is  to  be  attributed  to  choice,  how  much  to  the  violence  of  the 
temptation,  to  the  stratagem  of  the  occasion,  and  the  yielding 
frailties  of  weak  nature. 

Should  we  try  men  at  that  rate  that  we  try  Christ,  we  should 
quickly  find,  that  the.  largest  stock  of  human  friendship  would 
be  too  little  for  us  to  spend  long  upon.  But  his  compassion  fol- 
lows us  with  an  infinite  supply.  He  is  God  in  his  friendship,  as 
well  as  in  his  nature,  and  therefore  we  sinful  creatures  are  not 
taken  upon  advantages,  nor  consumed  in  our  provocations. 

See  this  exemplified  in  his  behaviour  to  his  disciples,  while  he 
was  yet  upon  earth.  How  ready  was  he  to  excuse  and  cover 
their  infirmities!  At  the  last  and  bitterest  scene  of  his  life, 
when  he  was  so  full  of  agony  and  horror  upon  the  approach  of  a 
dismal  death,  and  so  had  most  need  of  the  refreshments  of  society, 
and  the  friendly  assistance  of  his  disciples ;  and  when  also  he 
desired  no  more  of  them,  but  only  for  a  while  to  sit  up  and  pray 
with  him :  yet  they,  like  persons  wholly  untouched  with  his 
agonies,  and  unmoved  with  his  passionate  entreaties,  forget  both 
his  and  their  own  cares,  and  securely  sleep  away  all  concern  for 
him  or  themselves  either.  Now,  what  a  fierce  and  sarcastic  re- 
prehension may  we  imagine  this  would  have  drawn  from  the 
friendships  of  the  world,  that  act  but  to  a  human  pitch !  and  yet 
what  a  gentle  one  did  it  receive  from  Christ !  in  Matt.  xxvi.  40, 
no  more  than,  "What,  could  you  not  watch  with  me  for  one 
hour?"  And  when  from  this  admonition  they  took  only  occasion 
to  redouble  their  fault,  and  to  sleep  again,  so  that  upon  a  second 
and  third  admonition  they  had  nothing  to  plead  for  their  un- 
seasonable drowsiness,  yet  then  Christ,  who  was  the  only  person 
concerned  to  have  resented  and  aggravated  this  their  unkindness, 
finds  an  extenuation  for  it,  when  they  themselves  could  not : 
"  The  spirit  indeed  is  willing,"  says  he,  "  but  the  flesh  is  weak." 
As  if  he  had  said,  I  know  your  hearts,  and  am  satisfied  of  your 
affection,  and  therefore  accept  your  will,  and  compassionate  your 


OF  THE  LOVE  OF  CHRIST  TO  HIS  DISCIPLES. 


231 


weakness.  So  benign,  so  gracious  is  the  friendship  of  Christ,  so 
answerable  to  our  wants,  so  suitable  to  our  frailties.  Happy 
that  man,  who  has  a  friend  to  point  out  to  him  the  perfection  of 
duty,  and  yet  to  pardon  him  in  the  lapses  of  his  infirmity ! 

3.  The  third  privilege  of  friendship  is  a  sympathy  in  joy  and 
grief.  When  a  man  shall  have  diffused  his  life,  his  self,  and  his 
whole  concernments  so  far,  that  he  can  weep  his  sorrows  with 
another's  eyes ;  when  he  has  another  heart  besides  his  own,  both 
to  share  and  to  support  his  griefs,  and  when,  if  his  joys  overflow, 
he  can  treasure  up  the  overplus  and  redundancy  of  them  in 
another  breast ;  so  that  he  can,  as  it  were,  shake  off  the  solitude 
of  a  single  nature,  by  dwelling  in  two  bodies  at  once,  and  living 
by  another's  breath ;  this  surely  is  the  height,  the  very  spirit 
and  perfection  of  all  human  felicities. 

It  is  a  true  and  happy  observation  of  that  great  philosopher 
the  Lord  Verulam,  that  this  is  the  benefit  of  communication  of 
our  minds  to  others,  "that  sorrows  by  being  communicated  grow 
less,  and  joys  greater."  And  indeed  sorrow,  like  a  stream,  loses 
itself  in  many  channels :  and  joy,  like  a  ray  of  the  sun,  reflects 
with  a  greater  ardour  and  quickness  when  it  rebounds  upon  a 
man  from  the  breast  of  his  friend. 

Now  friendship  is  the  only  scene  upon  •  which  the  glorious 
truth  of  this  great  proposition  can  be  fully  acted  and  drawn 
forth.  Which  indeed  is  a  summary  description  of  the  sweets  of 
friendship :  and  the  whole  life  of  a  friend  in  the  several  parts  and 
instances  of  it,  is  only  a  more  diffuse  comment  upon,  and  a 
plainer  explication  .of  this  divine  aphorism.  Friendship  never 
restrains  a  pleasure  to  a  single  •  fruition :  but  such  is  the  royal 
nature  of  this  quality,  that  it  still  expresses  itself  in  the  style  of 
kings,  as  we  do  this  or  that ;  and  this  is  our  happiness  ;  and  such 
or  such  a  thing  belongs  to  us ;  when  the  immediate  possession  of 
it  is  vested  only  in  one.  Nothing  certainly  in  nature,  can  so 
peculiarly  gratify  the  noble  dispositions  of  humanity,  as  for  one 
man  to  see  another  so  much  himself,  as  to  sigh  his  griefs,  and 
groan  his  pains,  to  sing  his  joys,  and,  as  it  were,  to  do  and  feel 
every  thing  by  sympathy,  and  secret  inexpressible  communica- 
tions.   Thus  it  is  upon  a  human  account. 

Let  us  now  see  how  Christ  sustains  and  makes  good  this 
generous  quality  of  a  friend.  And  this  we  shall  find  fully  set 
forth  to  us,  in  Heb.  iv.  15,  where  he  is  said  to  be  a  "  merciful 
High  Priest,  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities ;  and 
that  in  all  our  afflictions  he  is  afflicted,"  Isa.  lxiii.  9.  And  no 
doubt,  with  the  same  bowels  and  meltings  of  affection,  with 
which  any  tender  mother  hears  and  bemoans  the  groanings  of 
her  sick  child,  does  Christ  hear  and  sympathize  with  the  spiritual 
agonies  of  a  soul  under  desertion,  or  the  pressures  of  some  sting- 
ing affliction.  It  is  enough  that  he  understands  the  exact  mea- 
sures of  our  strengths  and  weaknesses;  that   uhe  knows  our 


232 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIV. 


frame,"  as  it  is  in  Psalm  ciii.  14.  And  that  he  does  not  only- 
know,  but  emphatically,  that  he  "  remembers  also  that  we  are 
but  dust."  Observe  that  signal  passage  of  his  loving  commise- 
ration ;  as  soon  as  he  had  risen  from  the  dead,  and  met  Mary 
Magdalene,  in  Mark  xvi.  7,  he  sends  this  message  of  his  resur- 
rection by  her :  "  Go,  tell  my  disciples  and  Peter,  that  I  am 
risen."  What!  was  not  Peter  one  of  his  disciples?  Why  then 
is  he  mentioned  particularly  and  by  himself,  as  if  he  were 
exempted  out  of  their  number?  Why,  we  know  into  what  a 
plunge  he  had  newly  cast  himself  by  denying  his  Master ;  upon 
occasion  of  which  he  is  now  struggling  with  all  the  perplexities 
and  horrors  of  mind  imaginable,  lest  Christ  might,  in  like  man- 
ner, deny  and  disown  him  before  his  Father,  and  so  repay  one 
denial  with  another.  Hereupon  Christ  particularly  applies  the 
comforts  of  his  resurrection  to  him,  as  if  he  had  said,  Tell  all 
my  disciples,  but  be  sure  especially  to  tell  poor  Peter,  that  I  am 
risen  from  the  dead ;  and  that,  notwithstanding  his  denial  of  me, 
the  benefits  of  my  resurrection  belong  to  him,  as  much  as  to  any 
of  the  rest.  This  is  the  privilege  of  the  saints,  to  have  a  com- 
panion and  a  supporter  in  all  their  miseries,  in  all  the  doubtful 
turnings  and  doleful  passages  of  their  lives.  In  sum,  this  happi- 
ness does  Christ  vouchsafe  to  all  his,  that  as  a  Saviour  he  once 
suffered  for  them,  and  that  as  a  friend,  he  always  suffers  with 
them. 

4.  The  fourth  privilege  of  friendship  is  that  which  is  here 
specified  in  the  text,  a  communication  of  secrets.  A  bosom 
secret  and  a  bosom  friend  are  usually  put  together.  And  this 
from  Christ  to  the  soul,  is  not  only  kindness,  but  also  honour 
and  advancement;  it  is  for  him  to  vouch  it  one  of  his  privy 
council.  Nothing  under  a  jewel  is  taken  into  the  cabinet.  A 
secret  is  the  apple  of  our  eye ;  it  will  bear  no  touch  nor  approach  ; 
we  use  to  cover  nothing  but  what  we  account  a  rarity.  And 
therefore  to  communicate  a  secret  to  any  one,  is  to  exalt  him  to 
one  of  the  royalties  of  heaven;  for  none  knows  the  secret  of  a 
man's  mind,  but  his  God,  his  conscience,  and  his  friend.  Neither 
would  any  prudent  man  let  such  a  thing  go  out  of  his  own  heart, 
had  he  not  another  heart  besides  his  own  t©  receive  it. 

Now  it  was  of  old  a  privilege,  with  which  God  was  pleased 
to  honour  such  as  served  him  at  the  rate  of  an  extraordinary 
obedience,  thus  to  admit  them  to  a  knowledge  of  many  of  his 
great  counsels  locked  up  from  the  rest  of  the  world.  When 
God  had  designed  the  destruction  of  Sodom,  the  scripture  repre- 
sents him  as  unable  to  conceal  that  great  purpose  from  Abraham, 
whom  he  always  treated  as  his  friend  and  acquaintance  ;  that  is, 
not  only  with  love,  but  also  with  intimacy  and  familiarity,  in 
Gen.  xviii.  ver.  17,  "And  the  Lord  said',  Shall  I  hide  from 
Abraham  the  thing  that  I  go  about  to  do?"  He  thought  it  a 
violation  of  the  rights  of  friendship  to  reserve  his  design  wholly 


OF  THE  LOVE  OF  CHRIST  TO  HIS  DISCIPLES.  233 

to  himself.  And  St.  James  tells  us,  in  James  ii.  23,  that  "  Abra- 
ham was  called  the  friend  of  God  ;"  and  therefore  had  a  kind 
of  claim  to  the  knowledge  of  his  secrets,  and  the  participation 
of  his  counsels.  Also  in  Exod.  xxxiii.  11,  it  is  said  of  God, 
that  he  "spoke  to  Moses  as  a  man  speaketh  to  his  friend."  And 
that,  not  only  for  the  familiarity  and  facility  of  address,  but  also 
for  the  peculiar  communications  of  his  mind.  Moses  was  with 
him  in  the  retirements  of  the  mount,  received  there  his  dictates, 
and  his  private  instructions  as  a  deputy  and  viceroy;  and  when 
the  multitude  and  the  congregation  of  Israel  were  thundered  away 
and  kept  off  from  any  approach  to  it,  he  was  honoured  with  an 
intimate  and  immediate  admission.  The  priests  indeed  were 
taken  into  a  near  attendance  upon  God  ;  but  still  there  was  a 
degree  of  a  nearer  converse,  and  the  interest  of  a  friend  was 
above  the  privileges  of  the  highest  servant.  In  Exod.  xix.  24, 
"Thou  shalt  come  up,"  says  God,  "thou  and  Aaron  with  thee; 
but  let  not  the  priests  and  the  people  break  through  to  come  up 
unto  the  Lord,  lest  the  Lord  break  forth  upon  them."  And  if 
we  proceed  further,  we  shall  still  find  a  continuation  of  the  same 
privilege :  Psalm  xxv.  14,  "  The  secret  of  the  Lord  is  with 
them  that  fear  him."  Nothing  is  to  be  concealed  from  the  other 
self.    To  be  a  friend,  and  to  be  conscious,  are  terms  equivalent. 

Now,  if  God  maintained  such  intimacies  with  those  whom  he 
loved  under  the  law  (which  was  a  dispensation  of  greater  dis- 
tance), we  may  be  sure  that  under  the  gospel  (the  very  nature 
of  which  imports  condescension  and  compliance),  there  must 
needs  be  the  same  with  much  greater  advantage.  And  therefore 
when  God  had  manifested  himself  in  the  flesh,  how  sacredly  did 
he  preserve  this  privilege !  How  freely  did  Christ  unbosom  himself 
to  his  disciples!  in  Luke  viii.  10,  "Unto  you,"  says  he,  "it  is 
given  to  know  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom  of  God  :  but  unto 
others  in  parables;  that  seeing  they  might  not  see  :"  such  shall  be 
permitted  to  cast  an  eye  into  the  ark,  and  to  look  into  the  very 
Holy  of  Holies.  And  again  in  Matt.  xiii.  17,  "Many  prophets 
and  righteous  men  have  desired  to  see  those  things  which  ye  see, 
and  have  not  seen  them ;  and  to  hear  those  things  which  ye  hear, 
and  have  not  heard  them."  Neither  did  he  treat  them  with  these 
peculiarities  of  favour  in  the  extraordinary  discoveries  of  the 
gospel  only,  but  also  of  those  incommunicable  revelations  of  the 
divine  love,  in  reference  to  their  own  personal  interest  in  it.  In 
Rev.  ii.  17,  "To  him  that  overcometh  will  I  give  to  eat  of  the 
hidden  manna,  and  will  give  him  a  white  stone,  and  in  the  stone 
a  new  name  written,  which  no  man  knoweth,  saving  he  that  re- 
ceiveth  it."  Assurance  is  a  rarity  covered  from  the  inspection  of 
the  world.  A  secret  that  none  can  know  but  God,  and  the 
person  that  is  blessed  with  it.  It  is  written  in  a  private  character, 
not  to  be  read  nor  understood  but  by  the  conscience,  to  which  the 
Spirit  of  God  has  vouchsafed  to  decipher  it.     Every  believer 

Vol.  I.— 30  u  2 


234 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS.  [sERM.  XIV. 


lives  upon  an  inward  provision  of  comfort,  that  the  world  is  a 
stranger  to. 

5.  The  fifth  advantage  of  friendship  is  counsel  and  advice. 
A  man  will  sometimes  need  not  only  another  heart  but  also 
another  head  besides  his  own.  In  solitude  there  is  not  only  dis- 
comfort, but  weakness  also ;  and  that  saying  of  the  wise  man, 
Eccles.  iv.  10,  "  Woe  to  him  that  is  alone,"  is  verified  upon  none 
so  much,  as  upon  the  friendless  person.  When  a  man  shall  be 
perplexed  with  knots  and  problems  of  business  and  contrary 
affairs;  where  the  determination  is  dubious,  and  both  parts  of 
the  contrariety  seem  equally  weighty,  so  that  which  way  soever 
the  choice  determines,  a  man  is  sure  to  venture  a  great  concern ; 
how  happy  then  is  it  to  fetch  in  aid  from  another  person,  whose 
judgment  may  be  greater  than  my  own,  and  whose  concernment 
is  sure  not  to  be  less!  There  are  some  passages  of  a  man's 
affairs  that  would  quite  break  a  single  understanding:  so  many 
intricacies,  so  many  labyrinths,  are  there  in  them,  that  the 
succours  of  reason  fail,  the  very  force  and  spirit  of  it  being  lost 
in  an  actual  intention  scattered  upon  several  clashing  objects  at 
once  ;  in  which  case  the  interposal  of  a  friend  is  like  the  supply 
of  a  fresh  party  to  a  besieged,  yielding  city. 

Now  Christ  is  not  failing  in  this  office  of  a  friend  also.  For 
in  that  illustrious  prediction  of  Isa.  ix.  6,  amongst  the  rest  of  his 
great  titles,  he  is  called  "  Mighty  Counsellor."  And  his  counsel 
is  not  only  sure,  but  also  free.  It  is  not  under  the  gospel  of 
Christ,  as  under  some  laws  of  men,  where  you  must  be  forced  to 
buy  your  counsel,  and  oftentimes  pay  dear  for  bad  advice.  No, 
"he  is  the  light  of  those  that  sit  in  darkness."  And  no  man 
fees  the  sun,  no  man  purchases  the  light,  nor  errs  if  he  walks  by 
it.  The  only  price  that  Christ  sets  upon  his  counsel  is,  that  we 
follow  it ;  and  that  we  do  that  which  is  best  for  us  to  do.  He 
is  not  only  light  for  us  to  see  by,  but  also  light  for  us  to  see 
with.  He  is  understanding  to  the  ignorant,  and  eyes  to  the 
blind :  and  whosoever  has  both  a  faithful  and  a  discreet  friend, 
to  guide  him  in  the  dark,  slippery,  and  dangerous  passage  of  his 
life,  may  carry  his  eyes  in  another  man's  head,  and  yet  see  never 
the  worse.  In  1  Cor.  i.  30,  the  apostle  tells  us,  that  Christ  is 
made  to  us,  not  only  "  sanctification  and  redemption,"  but  "  wis- 
dom" too.  We  are  his  members,  and  it  is  but  natural  that  all 
the  members  of  the  body  should  be  guided  by  the  wisdom  of  the 
head. 

And  therefore,  let  every  believer  comfort  himself  in  this  high 
privilege,  that  in  the  great  things  that  concern  his  eternal  peace, 
he  is  not  left  to  stand  or  fall  by  the  uncertain  directions  of  his 
own  judgment.  No,  sad  were  his  condition  if  he  should  be  so, 
when  he  is  to  encounter  an  enemy  made  up  of  wiles  and  strata- 
gems, an  old  serpent,  and  a  long  experienced  deceiver,  and  suc- 
cessful at  the  trade  for  some  thousands  of  years. 


OF  THE  LOVE  OF  CHRIST  TO  HIS  DISCIPLES. 


235 


The  inequality  of  the  match  between  such  a  one  and  the  subtlest 
of  us,  would  quickly  appear  by  a  fatal  circumvention.  There 
must  be  a  wisdom  from  above  to  overreach  and  master  this 
hellish  wisdom  from  beneath.  And  this  everyl  sanctified  person 
is  sure  of  in  his  great  Friend,  "  in  whom  all  the  treasures  of 
wisdom  dwell ;"  treasures  that  flow  out,  and  are  imparted  freely 
both  in  direction  and  assistance  to  all  that  belong  to  him.  He 
never  leaves  any  of  his  perplexed,  amazed,  or  bewildered,  where 
the  welfare  of  their  souls  requires  a  better  judgment  than  their 
own,  either  to  guide  them  in  their  duty,  or  to  disentangle  them 
from  a  temptation.  Whosoever  has  Christ  for  his  friend,  shall 
be  sure  of  counsel ;  and  whosoever  is  his  own  friend,  will  be  sure 
to  obey  it. 

6.  The  last  and  crowning  privilege,  or  rather  property  of 
friendship  is  constancy.  He  only  is  a  friend  whose  friendship 
lives  as  long  as  himself ;  who  ceases  to  love  and  to  breathe  at  the 
same  instant.  Not  that  I  yet  state  constancy  in  such  an  absurd, 
senseless,  irrational  continuance  in  friendship,  as  no  injuries,  or 
provocations  whatsoever,  can  break  off.  For  there  are  some 
injuries  that  extinguish  the  very  relation  between  friends.  In 
which  case,  a  man  ceases  to  be  a  friend,  not  from  any  inconstancy 
in  his  friendship,  but  from  defect  of  an  object  for  his  friendship 
to  exert  itself  upon.  It  is  one  thing  for  a  father  to  cease  to  be 
a  father,  by  casting  off  his  son ;  and  another  for  him  to  cease  to 
be  so,  by  the  death  of  his  son.  In  this  the  relation  is  at  an  end 
for  want  of  a  correlate.  So  in  friendship,  there  are  some  pas- 
sages of  that  high  and  hostile  nature,  that  they  really  and  pro- 
perly constitute  and  denominate  the  person  guilty  of  them,  an 
enemy ;  and  if  so,  how  can  the  other  person  possibly  continue  a 
friend,  since  friendship  essentially  requires  that  it  be  between  two 
at  least;  and  there  can  be  no  friendship,  where  there  are  not  two 
friends  ? 

Nobody  is  bound  to  look  upon  his  backbiter  or  his  underminer, 
his  betrayer  or  his  oppressor,  as  his  friend.  Nor  indeed  is  it  pos- 
sible that  he  should  do  so,  unless  he  could  alter  the  constitution 
and  order  of  things,  and  establish  a  new  nature  and  a  new  mo- 
rality in  the  world.  For  to  remain  unsensible  of  such  provoca- 
tions is  not  constancy,  but  apathy.  And  therefore  they  discharge 
the  person  so  treated  from  the  proper  obligations  of  a  friend; 
though  Christianity,  I  confess,  binds  him  to  the  duties  of  a 
neighbour. 

But  to  give  you  the  true  nature  and  measures  of  constancy; 
it  is  such  a  stability  and  firmness  of  friendship  as  overlooks  and 
passes  by  all  those  lesser  failures  of  kindness  and  respect,  that 
partly  through  passion,  partly  through  indiscretion,  and  such  other 
frailties  incident  to  human  nature,  a  man  may  be  sometimes 
guilty  of  and  yet  still  retain  the  same  habitual  good- will,  and 
prevailing  propensity  of  mind  to  his  friend,  that  he  had  before. 


236  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  XIV. 

And  whose  friendship  soever  is  of  that  strength  and  duration  as 
to  stand  its  ground  against,  and  remain  unshaken  by  such  assaults 
which  yet  are  strong  enough  to  shake  down  and "  annihilate  the 
friendship  of  little  puny  minds — such  a  one,  I  say,  has  reached 
all  the  true  measures  of  constancy.  His  friendship  is  of  a  noble 
make,  and  a  lasting  consistency;  it  resembles  marble,  and  de- 
serves to  be  written  upon  it. 

But  how  few  tempers  in  the  world  are  of  that  magnanimous 
frame,  as  to  reach  the  heights  of  so  great  a  virtue !  Many  offer  at 
the  effects  of  friendship,  but  they  do  not  last ;  they  are  promising 
in  the  beginning,  but  they  fail,  and  jade,  and  tire  in  the  prosecu- 
tion. For  most  people  in  the  world  are  acted  by  levity,  and  hu- 
mour, and  by  strange  and  irrational  changes.  And  how  often 
may  we  meet  with  those  who  are  one  while  courteous,  civil,  and 
obliging  (at  least  to  their  proportion),  but  within  a  small  time 
after,  are  so  supercilious,  sharp,  troublesome,  fierce,  and  excep- 
tions, that  they  are  not  only  short  of  the  true  character  of  friend- 
ship, but  become  the  very  sores  and  burdens  of  society!  Such 
low,  such  worthless  dispositions,  how  easily  are  they  discovered, 
how  justly  are  they  despised!  But  now  that  we  may  pass  from 
one  contrary  to  another:  Christ,  "who  is  the  same  yesterday,  to- 
day, and  for  ever,"  in  his  being,  is  so  also  in  his  affection.  He  is 
not  of  the  number  or  nature  of  those  pitiful,  mean  pretenders  to 
friendship,  who  perhaps  will  love  and  smile  upon  you  one  day, 
and  not  so  much  as  know  you  the  next:  many  of  which  sort 
there  are  in  the  world,  who  are  not  so  much  courted  outwardly, 
but  that  inwardly  they  are  detested  much  more. 

Friendship  is  a  kind  of  covenant ;  and  most  covenants  run  upon 
mutual  terms  and  conditions.  And  therefore  so  long  as  we  are 
exact  in  fulfilling  the  condition  on  our  parts,  I  mean,  exact  ac- 
cording to  the  measures  of  sincerity,  though  not  of  perfection, 
we  may  be  sure  that  Christ  will  not  fail  in  the  least  iota  to  fulfil 
every  thing  on  his.  The  favour  of  relations,  patrons,  and  princes, 
is  uncertain,  ticklish,  and  variable  ;  and  the  friendship  which  they 
take  up,  upon  the  accounts  of  judgment  and  merit,  they  most 
times  lay  down  out  of  humour.  But  the  friendship  of  Christ 
has  none  of  these  weaknesses,  no  such  hollowness  or  unsoundness 
in  it.  For  neither  principalities  nor  powers,  things  present  nor 
things  to  come  ;  no,  nor  all  the  rage  and  malice  of  hell,  shall  be 
able  to  pluck  the  meanest  of  Christ's  friends  out  of  his  bosom  : 
for,  "whom  he  loves  he  loves  to  the  end." 

Now  from  the  particulars  hitherto  discoursed  of,  we  may  infer 
and  learn  these  two  things  :  1.  The  excellency  and  value  of  friend- 
ship. Christ,  the  Son  of  the  most  high  God,  the  second  person  in 
the  glorious  Trinity,  took  upon  him  our  nature  that  he  might  give 
a  great  instance  and  example  of  this  virtue  ;  and  condescended  to  be 
a  man,  only  that  he  might  be  a  friend.  Our  Creator,  our  Lord  and 
King,  he  was  before  ;  but  he  would  needs  come  down  from  all 


OF  THE  LOVE  OF  CHRIST  TO  HIS  DISCIPLES.  237 

this,  and,  in  a  sort,  become  our  equal,  that  he  might  partake  of 
that  noble  quality  that  is  properly  between  equals.  Christ  took 
not  upon  him  flesh  and  blood,  that  he  might  conquer  and  rule 
nations,  lead  armies,  or  possess  palaces ;  but  that  he  might  have 
the  relenting,  the  tenderness,  and  the  compassions  of  human 
nature,  which  render  it  properly  capable  of  friendship ;  and,  in  a 
word,  that  we  might  have  our  heart,  and  we  have  his.  God  him- 
self sets  friendship  above  all  considerations  of  kindred  or  consan- 
guinity, as  the  greatest  ground  and  argument  of  mutual  endear- 
ment, in  Deut.  xv.  6 :  "If  thy  brother,  the  son  of  thy  mother, 
or  thy  son,  or  thy  daughter,  or  the  wife  of  thy  bosom,  or  thy 
friend,  which  is  as  thine  own  soul,  entice  thee  to  go  and  serve 
other  gods,  thou  shalt  not  consent  unto  him."  The  emphasis  of 
the  expression  is  very  remarkable,  it  being  a  gradation,  or  ascent, 
by  several  degrees  of  dearness,  to  that  wThich  is  the  highest  of 
all.  Neither  wife  nor  brother,  son  nor  daughter,  though  the 
nearest  in  cognation,  are  allowed  to  stand  in  competition  with  a 
friend ;  who,  if  he  fully  answers  the  duties  of  that  great  relation, 
is  indeed  better  and  more  valuable  than  all  of  them  put  together, 
and  may  serve  instead  of  them ;  so  that  he  who  has  a  firm,  a 
worthy,  and  sincere  friend,  may  want  all  the  rest  without  missing 
them.  That  which  lies  in  a  man's  bosom,  should  be  dear  to  him ; 
but  that  which  lies  within  his  heart,  ought  to  be  much  dearer. 
2.  In  the  next  place  we  learn  from  hence  the  high  advantage  of 
becoming  truly  pious  and  religious.  When  we  have  said  and 
done  all,  it  is  only  the  true  Christian,  and  the  religious  person, 
who  is,  or  can  be  sure  of  a  friend ;  sure  of  obtaining,  sure  of 
keeping  him.  But  as  for  the  friendship  of  the  world ;  when  a 
man  shall  have  done  all  that  he  can  to  make  one  his  friend, 
employed  the  utmost  of  his  wit  and  labour,  beaten  his  brains,  and 
emptied  his  purse,  to  create  an  endearment  between  him  and  the 
person  whose  friendship  he  desires,  he  may,  in  the  end,  upon  all 
these  endeavours  and  attempts,  be  forced  to  write  vanity  and 
frustration :  for,  by  them  all,  he  may  at  last  be  no  more  able  to 
get  into  the  other's  heart,  than  he  is  to  thrust  his  hand  into  a 
pillar  of  brass.  The  man's  affection,  amidst  all  these  kindnesses 
done  him,  remaining  wholly  unconcerned  and  impregnable ;  just 
like  a  rock,  which  being  plied  continually  by  the  waves,  still 
throws  them  back  again  into  the  bosom  of  the  sea  that  sent  them, 
but  is  not  at  all  moved  by  any  of  them. 

People  at  first,  while  they  are  young  and  raw,  and  soft 
natured,  are  apt  to  think  it  an  easy  thing  to  gain  love,  and 
reckon  their  own  friendship  a  sure  price  of  another  man's.  But 
when  experience  shall  have  once  opened  their  eyes,  and  shown 
them  the  hardness  of  most  hearts,  the  hollowness  of  others,  and 
the  baseness  and  ingratitude  of  almost  all,  they  will  then  find, 
that  a  friend  is  the  gift  of  God;  and  that  he  only,  who  made 
hearts,  can  unite  them.    For  it  is  he  who  creates  those  sympa- 


238 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIV. 


thies  and  suitablenesses  of  nature,  that  are  the  foundation  of  all 
true  friendship,  and  then  by  his  providence  brings  persons  so 
affected  together. 

It  is  an  expression  frequent  in  scripture,  but  infinitely  more 
significant  than  at  first  it  is  usually  observed  to  be :  namely, 
that  God  gave  such  or  such  a  person  grace  or  favour  in  another's 
eyes.  As  for  instance,  in  Gen.  xxxix.  21,  it  is  said  of  Joseph, 
that  "  the  Lord  was  with  him,  and  gave  him  favour  in  the  sight 
of  the  keeper  of  the  prison."  Still  it  is  an  invisible  hand  from 
heaven  that  ties  this  knot,  and  mingles  hearts  and  souls,  by 
strange,  secret,  and  unaccountable  conjunctions. 

That  heart  shall  surrender  itself,  and  its  friendship,  to  one 
man,  at  first  view,  which  another  has,  in  vain,  been  laying  siege  to 
for  many  years,  by  all  the  repeated  acts  of  kindness  imaginable. 
Nay,  so  far  is  friendship  from  being  of  any  human  protection, 
that  unless  nature  be  predisposed  to  it,  by  its  own  propensity  or 
inclination,  no  arts  of  obligation  shall  be  able  to  abate  the  secret 
hatreds  and  hostilities  of  some  persons  towards  others.  No 
friendly  offices,  no  addresses,  no  benefits  whatever,  shall  ever 
alter  or  allay  that  diabolical  rancour,  that  frets  and  ferments  in 
some  hellish  breasts,  but  that  upon  all  occasions  it  will  foam  out 
at  its  foul  mouth  in  slander  and  invective,  and  sometimes  bite  too 
in  a  shrewd  turn  or  a  secret  blow.  This  is  true  and  undeniable 
upon  frequent  experience ;  and  happy  those  who  can  learn  it  at 
the  cost  of  other  men's. 

But  now,  on  the  contrary,  he  who  will  give  up  his  name  to 
Christ  in  faith  unfeigned,  and  a  sincere  obedience  to  all  his 
righteous  laws,  shall  be  sure  to  find  love  for  love,  and  friendship 
for  friendship.  The  success  is  certain  and  infallible ;  and  none 
ever  yet  miscarried  in  the  attempt.  For  Christ  freely  offers  his 
friendship  to  all ;  and  sets  no  other  rate  upon  so  vast  a  purchase, 
but  only  that  he  would  suffer  him  to  be  our  friend.  Thou  per- 
haps spendest  thy  precious  time  in  waiting  upon  such  a  great  one, 
and  thy  estate  in  presenting  him ;  and,  probably  after  all,  hast  no 
other  reward,  but  sometimes  to  be  smiled  upon,  and  always  to  be 
smiled  at;  and  when  thy  greatest  and  most  pressing  occasions 
shall  call  for  succour  and  relief,  then  to  be  deserted  and  cast  off, 
and  not  known. 

Now,  I  say,  turn  the  stream  of  thy  endeavours  another  way, 
and  bestow  but  half  that  hearty,  sedulous  attendance  upon  thy 
Saviour,  in  the  duties  of  prayer  and  mortification ;  and  be  at  half 
that  expense  in  charitable  works,  by  relieving  Christ  in  his  poor 
members,  and,  in  a  word,  study  as  much  to  please  him  who  died 
for  thee  as  thou  dost  to  court  and  humour  thy  great  patron,  who 
cares  not  for  thee,  and  thou  shalt  make  him  thy  friend  for  ever ; 
a  friend,  who  shall  own  thee  in  thy  lowest  condition,  speak  com- 
fort to  thee  in  all  thy  sorrows,  counsel  thee  in  all  thy  doubts, 
answer  all  thy  wants,  and,  in  a  word,  "  never  leave  thee  nor  for- 


OF  THE  LOVE  OF  CHRIST  TO  HIS  DISCIPLES. 


239 


sake  thee."  But  when  all  the  hopes  that  thou  hast  raised  upon 
the  promises  or  supposed  kindnesses  of  the  fastidious  and  fallacious 
great  ones  of  the  world,  shall  fail,  and  upbraid  thee  to  thy  face, 
he  shall  then  take  thee  into  his  bosom,  embrace,  cherish,  and 
support  thee ;  and,  as  the  psalmist  expresses  it,  "  he  shall  guide 
thee  with  his  counsel  here,  and  afterwards  receive  thee  into 
glory." 

To  which  God  of  his  mercy  vouchsafe  to  bring  us  all ;  to 
whom  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  &c.  Amen. 


240 


SERMON  XV. 

AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 

Eccles.  V.  2. 

Be  not  rash  with  thy  mouth,  and  let  not  thine  heart  be  hasty  to  utter 
any  thing  before  God:  for  God  is  in  heaven,  and  thou  upon 
earth  :  there/ore  let  thy  words  be  few. 

We  have  here  the  wisest  of  men  instructing  us  how  to  behave 
ourselves  before  God  in  his  own  house ;  and  particularly  when 
we  address  to  him  in  the  most  important  of  all  duties,  which  is 
prayer.  Solomon  had  the  honour  to  be  spoken  to  by  God  him- 
self, and  therefore,  in  all  likelihood,  none  more  fit  to  teach  us 
how  to  speak  to  God.  A  great  privilege  certainly  for  dust  and 
ashes  to  be  admitted  to ;  and  therefore  it  will  concern  us  to 
manage  it  so,  that  in  these  our  approaches  to  the  King  of  heaven, 
his  goodness  may  not  cause  us  to  forget  his  greatness,  nor  (as  it 
is  but  too  usual  for  subjects  to  use  privilege  against  prerogative) 
his  honour  suffer  by  his  condescension. 

In  the  words  we  have  these  three  things  observable. 

1.  That  whosoever  appears  in  the  house  of  God,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  way  of  prayer,  ought  to  reckon  himself,  in  a  more 
especial  manner,  placed  in  the  sight  and  presence  of  God. 

2.  That  the  vast  and  infinite  distance  between  God  and  him, 
ought  to  create  in  him  all  imaginable  awe  and  reverence,  in  such 
his  addresses  to  God. 

3.  And  lastly,  That  this  reverence  required  of  him,  is  to  con- 
sist in  a  serious  preparation  of  his  thoughts,  and  a  sober  govern- 
ment of  his  expressions :  neither  is  his  mouth  to  be  rash,  nor  his 
heart  to  be  hasty,  in  uttering  any  thing  before  God. 

These  things  are  evidently  contained  in  the  words,  and  do  as 
evidently  contain  the  whole  sense  of  them.  But  I  shall  gather 
them  all  into  this  one  proposition ;  namely, 

That  premeditation  of  thought,  and  brevity  of  expression,  are 
the  great  ingredients  of  that  reverence,  that  is  required  to  a 
pious,  acceptable,  and  devout  prayer. 

For  the  better  handling  of  which,  we  will,  in  the  first  place, 
consider  how  and  by  what  way  it  is,  that  prayer  works  upon,  or 
prevails  with  God,  for  the  obtaining  of  the  things  we  pray  for. 
Concerning  which,  I  shall  lay  down  this  general  rule,  that  the 
way  by  which  prayer  prevails  with  God,  is  wholly  different  from 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


241 


that  by  which  it  prevails  with  men.  And  to  give  you  this  more 
particularly, 

1.  First  of  all,  it  prevails  not  with  God  by  way  of  information 
or  notification  of  the  thing  to  him,  which  we  desire  of  him.  With 
men  indeed,  this  is  the  common,  and  with  wise  men  the  chief, 
and  should  be  the  only  way  of  obtaining  what  we  ask  of  them. 
We  represent  and  lay  before  them  our  wants  and  indigencies, 
and  the  misery  of  our  condition  ;  which  being  made  known  to 
them,  the  quality  and  condition  of  the  thing  asked  for,  and  of  the 
persons  who  ask  it,  induces  them  to  give  that  to  us,  and  to  do 
that  for  us,  which  we  desire  and  petition  for.  But  it  is  not  so 
in  our  addresses  to  God,  for  he  knows  our  wants  and  our  condi- 
tions better  than  we  ourselves :  he  is  beforehand  with  all  our 
prayers,  Matt.  vi.  8,  "  Your  father  knoweth  what  things  ye  have 
need  of  before  ye  ask  him and  in  Psalm  cxxxix.  2,  "  Thou 
understandest  my  thought  afar  off."  God  knows  our  thoughts 
before  the  very  heart  that  conceives  them.  And  how  then  can 
he,  who  is  but  of  yesterday,  suggest  any  thing  new  to  that  eternal 
mind  !    How  can  ignorance  inform  omniscience ! 

2.  Neither  does  prayer  prevail  with  God  by  way  of  persuasion, 
or  working  upon  the  affections,  so  as  thereby  to  move  him  to  pity 
or  compassion.  This  indeed  is  the  most  usual  and  most  effectual 
way  to  prevail  with  men ;  who,  for  the  generality,  are  one  part 
reason,  and  nine  parts  affection.  So  that  one  of  a  voluble 
tongue,  and  a  dexterous  insinuation,  may  do  what  he  will  with 
vulgar  minds,  and  with  wise  men  too,  at  their  weak  times.  But 
God,  who  is  as  void  of  passion  or  affection  as  he  is  of  quantity  or 
corporeity,  is  not  to  be  dealt  with  this  way.  He  values  not  our 
rhetoric,  nor  our  pathetical  harangues.  He  who  applies  to  God, 
applies  to  an  infinite  almighty  reason,  a  pure  act,  all  intellect, 
the  first  mover,  and  therefore  not  to  be  moved  or  wrought  upon 
himself.  In  all  passion  the  mind  suffers  (as  the  very  signification 
of  the  word  imports) ;  but  absolute,  entire  perfection  cannot 
suffer ;  it  is  and  must  be  immovable,  and  by  consequence  im- 
passible.   And  therefore, 

In  the  third  and  last  place,  much  less  is  God  to  be  prevailed 
upon  by  importunity,  and,  as  it  were,  wearying  him  into  a  con- 
cession of  what  we  beg  of  him.  Though  with  men  we  know  this 
also  is  not  unusual.  A  notable  instance  of  which  we  have  in 
Luke  xviii.  4,  5,  where  the  unjust  judge  being  with  a  restless 
vehemence  sued  to  for  justice,  says  thus  within  himself:  "Though 
I  fear  not  God,  nor  regard  man,  yet  because  this  widow  troubleth 
me,  I  will  avenge  her,  lest  by  her  continual  coming  she  weary  me." 

In  like  manner,  how  often  are  beggars  relieved  only  for  their 
eager  and  rude  importunity ;  not  that  the  person  who  relieves 
them  is  thereby  informed  or  satisfied  of  their  real  want,  nor  yet 
moved  to  pity  them  by  all  their  cry  and  cant,  but  to  rid  himself 
from  their  vexatious  noise  and  din ;   so  that,  to  purchase  his 

Vol.  I.— 31  X 


242 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XV. 


quiet  by  a  little  alms,  he  gratifies  the  beggar;  but  indeed 
relieves  himself.  But  now  this  way  is  further  from  prevailing 
with  God  than  either  of  the  former.  For  as  omniscience  is  not 
to  be  informed,  so  neither  is  omnipotence  to  be  wearied.  We 
may  much  more  easily  think  to  clamour  the  sun  and  stars  out  of 
their  courses,  than  to  word  the  great  Creator  of  them  out  of  the 
steady  purposes  of  his  own  will,  by  all  the  vehemence  and  loud- 
ness of  our  petitions.  Men  may  tire  themselves  with  their  own 
prayers,  but  God  is  not  to  be  tired.  The  rapid  motion  and 
whirl  of  things  here  below,  interrupts  not  the  inviolable  rest  and 
calmness  of  the  noble  beings  above.  While  the  winds  roar  and 
bluster  here  in  the  first  and  second  regions  of  the  air,  there  is  a 
perfect  serenity  in  the  third.  Men's  desires  cannot  control 
God's  decrees. 

And  thus  I  have  shown,  that  the  three  ways  by  which  men 
prevail  with  men  in  their  prayers  and  applications  to  them,  have 
no  place  at  all  in  giving  any  efficacy  to  their  addresses  to  God. 

But  you  will  ask  then,  upon  what  account  is  it  that  prayer 
becomes  prevalent  and  efficacious  with  God,  so  as  to  procure  us 
the  good  things  we  pray  for  ?  I  answer,  upon  this,  that  it  is  the 
fulfilling  of  that  condition,  upon  which  God  has  freely  promised 
to  convey  his  blessings  to  men.  God,  of  his  own  absolute,  un- 
accountable good  will  and  pleasure,  has  thought  fit  to  appoint 
and  fix  upon  this  as  the  means  by  which  he  will  supply  and 
answer  the  wants  of  mankind.  As  for  instance,  suppose  a  prince 
should  declare  to  any  one  of  his  subjects,  that  if  he  shall  appear 
before  him  every  morning  in  his  bed-chamber,  he  shall  receive 
of  him  a  thousand  talents.  We  must  not  here  imagine  that  the 
subject,  by  making  this  appearance,  does  either  move  or  per- 
suade his  prince  to  give  him  such  a  sum  of  money :  no,  he  only 
performs  the  condition  of  the  promise,  and  thereby  acquires  a 
right  to  the  thing  promised.  He  does,  indeed,  hereby  engage 
his  prince  to  give  him  this  sum,  though  he  does  by  no  means 
persuade  him :  or  rather,  to  speak  more  strictly  and  properly, 
the  prince's  own  justice  and  veracity  is  an  engagement  upon  the 
prince  himself,  to  make  good  his  promise  to  him  who  fulfils  the 
conditions  of  it. 

But  you  will  say,  that  upon  this  ground  it  will  follow,  that 
when  we  obtain  any  thing  of  God  by  prayer,  we  have  it  upon  claim 
of  justice,  and  not  by  way  of  gift,  as  a  free  result  of  his  bounty. 

I  answer,  that  both  these  are  very  well  consistent ;  for  though 
he  who  makes  a  promise  upon  a  certain  condition,  is  bound  in 
justice,  upon  the  fulfilling  of  that  condition,  to  perform  his  pro- 
mise ;  yet  it  was  perfectly  grace  and  goodness,  bounty  and  free 
mercy,  that  first  induced  him  to  make  the  promise,  and  particu- 
larly to  state  the  tenor  of  it  upon  such  a  condition.  "  If  we 
confess  our  sins,"  says  the  apostle,  1  John  i.  9,  "  God  is  faith- 
ful and  just  to  forgive  us  our  sins."    Can  any  thing  be  freer, 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS.  243 

and  more  the  effect  of  mere  grace,  than  the  forgiveness  of  sins  ? 
And  y  t  it  is  certain  from  this  scripture  and  many  more,  that  it 
is  firmly  promised  us  upon  condition  of  a  penitent,  heart}-  con- 
fession of  them ;  and,  consequently,  as  certain  it  is,  that  God 
stands  obliged  here,  even  by  his  faithfulness  and  justice,  to  make 
good  this  his  promise  of  forgiveness  to  those -who  come  up  to  the 
terms  of  it  by  such  a  confession. 

In  like  manner,  for  prayer,  in  reference  to  the  good  things 
prayed  for.  He  who  prays  for  a  thing  as  God  has  appointed 
him,  gets  thereby  a  right  to  the  thing  prayed  for:  but  it  is  a 
right,  not  springing  from  any  merit  or  condignity,  either  in  the 
prayer  itself,  or  the  person  who  makes  it,  to  the  blessing  which 
he  prays  for  ;  but  from  God's  veracity,  truth,  and  justice,  who 
having  appointed  prayer  as  the  condition  of  that  blessing,  cannot 
but  stand  to  what  he  himself  had  appointed  ;  though  that  he  did 
appoint  it,  was  the  free  result  and  determination  of  his  own  will. 

We  have  a  full  account  of  this  whole  matter  from  God's  own 
mouth,  in  the  50th  Psalm:  "Call  upon  me,"  says  God,  "in  the 
day  of  trouble,  and  I  will  deliver  thee."  These  are  evidently 
the  terms  upon  which  God  answers  prayers :  in  which  case  there 
is  no  doubt,  but  the  deliverance  is  still  of  more  worth  than  the 
prayer :  and  there  is  as  little  doubt  also,  that  without  such  a 
previous  declaration  made  on  God's  part,  a  person  so  in  trouble 
or  distress,  might  pray  his  heart  out,  and  yet  God  not  be  in  the 
least  obliged  by  all  his  prayers,  either  in  justice  or  honour,  or 
indeed  so  much  as  in  mercy,  to  deliver  him ;  for  mercy  is  free, 
and  misery  cannot  oblige  it.  In  a  word,  prayer  procures  deliver- 
ance from  trouble,  just  as  Naaman's  dipping  himself  seven  times 
in  Jordan  procured  him  a  deliverance  from  his  leprosy ;  not  by 
any  virtue  in  itself  adequate  to  so  great  an  effect,  you  may  be 
sure ;  but  from  this,  that  it  was  appointed  by  God  as  the  condi- 
tion of  his  recover)- ;  and  so  obliged  the  power  of  him  who  ap- 
pointed it,  to  give  force  and  virtue  to  his  own  institution,  beyond 
what  the  nature  of  the  thing  itself  could  otherwise  have  raised 
it  to. 

Let  this  therefore  be  fixed  upon,  as  the  ground- work  of  what 
we  are  to  say  upon  this  subject:  that  prayer  prevails  with  God  for 
the  blessing  that  we  pray  for,  neither  by  way  of  information,  nor 
vet  of  persuasion,  and  much  less  by  the  importunity-  of  him  who 
prays,  and  least  of  all  by  any  worth  in  the  prayer  itself,  equal  to 
the  thing  prayed  for;  but  it  prevails  solely  upon  this  account, 
that  it  is  freeiy  appointed  by  God  as  the  stated,  allowed  condi- 
tion, upon  which  he  will  dispense  his  blessings  to  mankind. 

But  before  I  dismiss  this  consideration,  it  may  be  inquired, 
whence  is  it  that  prayer,  rather  than  any  other  thing,  comes  to 
be  appointed  by  God  for  this  condition  ?  In  answer  to  which, 
though  God's  sovereign  will  be  a  sufficient  reason  of.  its  own 
counsels  and  determinations,  and  consequently  a  more  than  suffi- 


244 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XV. 


cient  answer  to  all  our  inquiries;  yet  since  God  in  his  infinite 
wisdom  still  adapts  means  to  ends,  and  never  appoints  a  thing  to 
any  use,  but  what  it  has  a  particular  and  a  natural  fitness  for ;  I 
shall  therefore  presume  to  assign  a  reason  why  prayer,  before  all 
other  things,  should  be  appointed  to  this  noble  use,  of  being  the 
condition  and  glorious  conduit,  whereby  to  derive  the  bounties  of 
heaven  upon  the  sons  of  men.  And  it  is  this :  because  prayer  of 
all  other  acts  of  a  rational  nature,  does  most  peculiarly  qualify  a 
man  to  be  a  fit  object  of  the  divine  favour,  by  being  most  eminently 
and  properly  an  act  of  dependence  upon  God  ;  since  to  pray,  or  beg 
a  thing  of  another,  in  the  very  nature  and  notion  of  it,  imports 
these  two  things:  1.  That  the  person  praying  stands  in  need  of 
some  good,  which  he  is  not  able,  by  any  power  of  his  own,  to 
procure  for  himself ;  and,  2.  That  he  acknowledges  it  in  the 
power  and  pleasure  of  the  person  whom  he  prays  to,  to  confer  it 
upon  him.    And  this  is  properly  that  which  men  call  to  depend. 

But  some  may  reply,  There  is  a  universal  dependence  of  all 
things  upon  God ;  forasmuch  as  he,  being  the  great  fountain  and 
source  of  being,  first  created,  and  since  supports  them  by  the 
word  of  his  power ;  and  consequently  that  this  dependence 
belongs  indifferently  to  the  wicked  as  well  as  to  the  just,  whose 
prayer  nevertheless  is  declared  an  abomination  to  God. 

But  to  this  the  answer  is  obvious,  That  the  dependence  here 
spoken  of,  is  meant,  not  of  a  natural,  but  of  a  moral  dependence. 
The  first  is  necessary,  the  other  voluntary.  The  first  common 
to  all,  the  other  proper  to  the  pious.  The  first  respects  God 
barely  as  a  Creator,  the  other  addresses  to  him  as  a  Father. 
Now  such  a  dependence  upon  God  it  is,  that  is  properly  seen  in 
prayer.  And  being  so,  if  we  should  in  all  humble  reverence  set 
ourselves  to  examine  the  wisdom  of  the  divine  proceeding  in 
this  matter,  even  by  the  measures  of  our  own  reason,  what  could  be 
more  rationally  thought  of  for  the  properest  instrument,  to  bring 
down  God's  blessings  upon  the  world,  than  such  a  temper  of 
mind  as  makes  a  man  disown  all  ability  in  himself  to  supply  his 
own  wants,  and  at  the  same  time  own  a  transcendent  fulness  and 
sufficiency  in  God  to  do  it  for  him  ?  And  what  can  be  more 
agreeable  to  all  principles,  both  of  reason  and  religion,  than  that 
a  creature  endued  with  understanding  and  will,  should  acknow- 
ledge that  dependence  upon  his  Maker  by  a  free  act  of  choice, 
which  other  creatures  have  upon  him,  only  by  necessity  of 
nature. 

But  still,  there  is  one  objection  more  against  our  foregoing 
assertion,  viz.  1  That  prayer  obtains  the  things  prayed  for,  only 
as  a  condition,  and  not  by  way  of  importunity  or  persuasion 
for  is  not  prayer  said  to  prevail  by  frequency,  Luke  xviii.  7, 
and  by  fervency  or  earnestness  in  James  v.  16  ?  And  is  not 
this  a  fair  proof  that  God  is  importuned  and  persuaded  into  a 
grant  of  our  petitions  ? 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


245 


To  this  I  answer  two  things:  1.  That  wheresoever  God  is 
said  to  answer  prayers  either  for  their  frequency  or  fervency,  it 
is  spoken  of  him  only  a*0pwrtorta0wj,  according  to  the  manner 
of  men;  and  consequently,  ought  to  be  understood  only  of  the 
effect  or  issue  of  such  prayers,  in  the  success  certainly  attending 
them,  and  not  of  the  manner  of  their  efficiency,  that  it  is  by 
persuading  or  working  upon  the  passions :  as  if  we  should  say, 
frequent,  fervent,  and  importunate  prayers,  are  as  certainly  fol- 
lowed with  God's  grant  of  the  thing  prayed  for,  as  men  use,  to 
grant  that  which,  being  overcome  by  excessive  importunity  and 
persuasion,  they  cannot  find  in  their  hearts  to  deny.  2.  I  answer 
further,  That  frequency  and  fervency  of  prayer  prove  effectual 
to  procure  of  God  the  things  prayed  for,  upon  no  other  account 
but  as  they  are  acts  of  dependence  upon  God :  which  dependence 
we  have  already  proved  to  be  that  thing  essentially  included  in 
prayer,  for  which  God  has  been  pleased  to  make  prayer  the  con- 
dition upon  which  he  determines  to  grant  men  such  things  as 
they  need,  and  duly  apply  to  him  for.  So  that  still  there  is 
nothing  of  persuasion  in  the  case. 

And  thus  having  shown  (and  I  hope  fully  and  clearly)  how 
prayer  operates  towards  the  obtaining  of  the  divine  blessings ; 
namely,  as  a  condition  appointed  by  God  for  that  purpose,  and 
no  otherwise :  and  withal,  for  what  reason  it  is  singled  out  of  all 
other  acts  of  a  rational  nature,  to  be  this  condition ;  namely, 
because  it  is  the  grand  instance  of  such  a  nature's  dependence 
upon  God :  we  shall  now  from  the  same  principle  infer  also, 
upon  what  account  the  highest  reverence  of  God  is  so  indispens- 
ably required  of  us  in  prayer,  and  all  sort  of  irreverence  so  dia- 
metrically opposite  to,  and  destructive  of  the  very  nature  of  it. 
And  it  will  appear  to  be  upon  this,  that  in  what  degree  any  one 
lays  aside  his  reverence  of  God,  in  the  same  he  also  quits  his 
dependence  upon  him :  forasmuch  as  in  every  irreverent  act,  a 
man  treats  God  as  if  he  had  indeed  no  need  of  him,  and  behaves 
himself  as  if  he  stood  upon  his  own  bottom,  absolute  and  self- 
sufficient.  This  is  the  natural  language,  the  true  signification  and 
import  of  all  irreverence. 

Now  in  all  addresses,  either  to  God  or  man,  by  speech,  our  reve- 
rence to  them  must  consist  of,  and  show  itself  in  these  two  things. 

First,  A  careful  regulation  of  our  thoughts  that  are  to  dictate 
and  to  govern  our  words ;  which  is  done  by  premeditation.  And 
secondly,  a  due  ordering  of  our  words,  that  are  to  proceed  from, 
and  to  express  our  thoughts ;  which  is  done  by  pertinence  and 
brevity  of  expression. 

David,  directing  his  prayer  to  God,  joins  these  two  together, 
as  the  two  great  integral  parts  of  it,  in  Psalm  xix.  14,  "  Let  the 
words  of  my  mouth,  and  the  meditations  of  my  heart,  be  accept- 
able in  thy  sight,  0  Lord."  So  that  it  seems  his  prayer  ade- 
quately and  entirely  consisted  of  those  two  things,  meditation 


246 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XV. 


and  expression,  as  it  were  the  matter  and  form  of  that  noble 
composure  ;  there  being  no  mention  at  all  of  distortion  of  face, 
sanctified  grimace,  solemn  wink,  or  foaming  at  the  mouth,  and 
the  like ;  all  which  are  circumstances  of  prayer  of  a  later  date, 
and  brought  into  request  by  those  fantastic  zealots,  who  had  a 
way  of  praying,  as  astonishing  to  the  eyes,  as  to  the  ears  of  those 
that  heard  them.  Well  then  ;  the  first  ingredient  of  a  pious  and 
reverential  prayer,  is  a  previous  regulation  of  the  thoughts,  as 
the  text  expresses  it  most  emphatically:  "Let  not  thy  heart 
be  hasty  to  utter  any  thing  before  God that  is,  in  other  words, 
let  it  not  venture  to  throw  out  its  crude,  extemporary,  sudden 
and  misshapen  conceptions  in  the  face  of  infinite  perfection.  Let 
not  thy  heart  conceive  and  bring  forth  together :  this  is  monstrous 
and  unnatural.  All  abortion  is  from  infirmity  and  defect.  And 
time  is  required  to  form  the  issue  of  the  mind,  as  well  as  that  of 
the  body.  The  fitness  or  unfitness  of  the  first  thoughts  cannot 
be  judged  of,  but  by  the  reflection  of  the  second :  and  be  the 
invention  never  so  fruitful,  yet  in  the  mind,  as  in  the  earth,  that 
which  is  cast  into  it,  must  lie  hid  and  covered  for  a  while  before 
it  can  be  fit  to  shoot  forth.  These  are  the  methods  of  nature,  and 
it  is  seldom  but  the  acts  of  religion  conform  to  them. 

He  who  is  to  pray,  would  he  seriously  judge  of  the  work  that 
is  before  him,  has  more  to  consider  of,  than  either  his  heart  can 
hold,  or  his  head  will  turn  itself  to.  Prayer  is  one  of  the  greatest 
and  the  hardest  works  that  a  man  has  to  do  in  this  world :  and 
was  ever  any  thing  difficult  or  glorious  achieved  by  a  sudden  cast 
of  a  thought, — a  flying  stricture  of  the  imagination?  Presence 
of  mind  is  indeed  good,  but  haste  is  not  so.  And  therefore,  let 
this  be  concluded  upon,  that  in  the  business  of  prayer,  to  pretend 
to  reverence,  when  there  is  no  premeditation,  is  both  impudence 
and  contradiction. 

Now  this  premeditation  ought  to  respect  these  three  things: 
1.  The  person  whom  we  pray  to.  2.  The  matter  of  our  prayers. 
And,  3.  The  order  and  disposition  of  them. 

1.  And  first,  for  the  person  whom  we  pray  to.  The  same  is  to 
employ,  who  must  needs  also  nonplus  and  astonish,  thy  medita- 
tions, and  be  made  the  object  of  thy  thoughts,  who  infinitely 
transcends  them.  For  all  the  knowing  and  reasoning  faculties 
of  the  soul,  are  utterly  baffled,  and  at  a  loss,  when  they  offer  at 
any  idea  of  the  great  God.  Nevertheless,  since  it  is  hard,  if  not 
impossible,  to  imprint  an  awe  upon  the  affections,  without 
suitable  notions  first  formed  in  the  apprehensions ;  we  must  in 
our  prayers  endeavour  at  least  to  bring  these  as  near  to  God  as 
we  can,  by  considering  such  of  his  divine  perfections  as  have, 
by  their  effects,  in  a  great  measure,  manifested  themselves  to  our 
senses,  and,  in  a  much  greater,  to  the  discourses  of  our  reason. 

As,  first,  consider  with  thyself,  how  great  and  glorious  a  being 
that  must  needs  be,  that  raised  so  vast  and  beautiful  a  fabric  as 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


247 


this  of  the  world  out  of  nothing,  with  the  breath  of  his  mouth, 
and  can  and  will,  with  the  same,  reduce  it  to  nothing  again ;  and 
then  consider,  that  this  is  that  high,  amazing  ^incomprehensible 
being,  whom  thou  addressest  thy  pitiful  self  to  in  prayer. 

Consider  next,  his   infinite,  all-searching   knowledge,  which 
looks  through  and  through  the  most  secret   of  our  thoughts, 
ransacks  every  corner  of  the  heart,  ponders  the  most  inward  de- 
signs and  ends  of  the  soul  in  all  a  man's  actions.    And  then  con- 
sider, that  this  is  the  God  whom  thou  hast  to  deal  with  in 
prayer ;   the  God  who  observes   the   postures,  the  frame  and 
motion  of  thy  mind,  in  all  thy  approaches  to  him ;  and  whose 
piercing  eye  it  is  impossible  to  elude .  or  escape  by  all  the  tricks 
and  arts  of  the  subtlest  and  most  refined  hypocrisy.    And,  lastly, 
consider  the  great,  the  fiery,  and  the  implacable  jealousy  that  he 
has  for  his  honour :  and  that  he  has  no  other  use  of  the  whole 
creation,  but  to  serve  the  ends  of  it;  and  above  all,  that  he  will, 
in  a  most  peculiar  manner,  "  be  honoured  of  those  who  draw 
near  to  him      and  will  by  no  means  suffer  himself  to  be  mocked 
and  affronted,  under  a  pretence  of  being  worshipped  ;  nor  endure, 
that  a  wretched,  contemptible,  sinful  creature,  who  is  but  a  piece 
of  living  dirt  at  best,  should  at  the  same  time  bend  the  knee  to 
him,  and  spit  in  his  face.    And  now  consider,  that  this  is  the 
God  whom  thou  prayest  to,  and  whom  thou  usest  with  such 
intolerable  indignity,  in  every  unworthy  prayer  thou  puttest  up 
to  him ;  every  bold,  saucy,  and  familiar  word,  that  upon  confi- 
dence of  being  one  of  God's  elect  thou  presumest  to  debase  so 
great  a  majesty  with.    And  for  an  instance  of  the  dreadful  curse 
that  attends  such  a  daring  irreverence,  consider  how  God  used 
Nadab  and  Abihu  for  venturing  to  offer  strange  fire  before  him ; 
and  then  know,  that  every  unhallowed,  unfitting  prayer,  is  a 
strange  fire :    a  fire  that  will  be  sure  to  destroy  the  offering, 
though  mercy  should  spare  the  offerer.    Consider  these  things 
seriously,  deeply,  and  severely,  till  the  consideration  of  them 
affects  thy  heart,  and  humbles  thy  spirit,  with  such  awful  appre- 
hensions of  thy  Maker,  and  such  abject  reflections  upon  thyself, 
as  may  lay  thee  in  the  dust  before  him.    And  know,  that  the 
lower  thou  fallest,  the  higher  will  thy  prayer  rebound ;  and  that 
thou  art  never  so  fit  to  pray  to  God,  as  when  a  sense  of  thy  own 
unworthiness  makes  thee  ashamed  even  to  speak  to  him. 

2.  The  second  object  of  our  premeditation,  is  the  matter  of  our 
prayers.  For,  as  we  are  to  consider  whom  we  are  to  pray  to ; 
so  are  we  to  consider  also,  what  we  are  to  pray  for ;  and  this  re- 
quires no  ordinary  application  of  thought  to  distinguish  or  judge 
of.  Men's  prayers  are  generally  dictated  by  their  desires,  and 
their  desires  are  the  issues  of  their  affections ;  and  their  affec- 
tions are  for  the  most  part  influenced  by  their  corruptions.  The 
first  constituent  principle  of  a  well  conceived  prayer  is,  to  know 
what  not  to  pray  for;  which  the  scripture  assures  us  that  some 


248 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XV. 


do  not,  while  they  "pray  for  what  they  may  spend  upon  their 
lusts,''  James  iv.  3 ;  asking  such  things  as  it  is  a  contumely  to 
God  to  hear,  and  damnation  to  themselves  to  receive.  No  man 
is  to  pray  for  any  thing  either  sinful,  or  directly  tending  to  sin. 
No  man  is  to  pray  for  a  temptation,  and  much  less  to  desire  God 
to  be  his  tempter ;  which  he  would  certainly  be,  should  he,  at  the 
instance  of  any  man's  prayer,  administer  fuel  to  his  sinful  or 
absurd  appetites.  Nor  is  any  one  to  ask  of  God  things  mean 
and  trivial,  and  beneath  the  majesty  of  heaven  to  be  concerned 
about,  or  solemnly  addressed  to  for.  Nor,  lastly,  is  any  one  to 
admit  into  his  petitions  things  superfluous  or  extravagant,  such 
as  wealth,  greatness,  and  honour ;  which  we  are  so  far  from  be- 
ing warranted  to  beg  of  God,  that  we  are  to  beg  his  grace  to 
despise  and  undervalue  them :  and  it  were  much,  if  the  same 
things  should  be  the  proper  objects  both  of  our  self-denial,  and 
of  our  prayers  too ;  and  that  we  should  be  allowed  to  solicit  the 
satisfaction,  and  enjoined  to  endeavour  the  mortification,  of  the 
same  desires. 

The  things  that  we  are  to  pray  for,  are  either,  1.  Things  of 
absolute  necessity;  or,  2.  Things  of  unquestionable  charity. 
Of  the  first  sort  are  all  spiritual  graces  required  in  us,  as  the 
indispensable  conditions  of  our  salvation :  such  as  are  repentance, 
faith,  hope,  charity,  temperance,  and  all  other  virtues,  that  are 
either  the  parts  or  principles  of  a  pious  life.  These  are  to  be  the 
prime  subject-matter  of  our  prayers;  and  we  shall  find,  that 
nothing  comes  this  way  so  easily  from  heaven,  as  those  things 
that  will  assuredly  bring  us  to  it.  The  Spirit  dictates  all  such 
petitions,  and  God  himself  is  first  the  author,  and  then  the  ful- 
filler  of  them;  owning  and  accepting  them,  both  as  our  duty 
and  his  own  production.  The  other  sort  of  things  that  may 
allowably  be  prayed  for,  are  things  of  manifest,  unquestionable 
charity:  such  as  are  a  competent  measure  of  the  innocent  com- 
forts of  life,  as  health,  peace,  maintenance,  and  a  success  of  our 
honest  labours:  and  yet  even  these  but  conditionally,  and  with 
perfect  resignation  to  the  will  and  wisdom  of  the  sovereign  dis- 
poser of  all  that  belongs  to  us ;  who  (if  he  finds  it  more  for  his 
honour  to  have  us  serve  him  with  sick,  crazy,  languishing  bodies, 
with  poverty,  and  extreme  want  of  all  things;  and  lastly,  with 
our  country  all  in  a  flame  about  our  ears)  ought  in  all  this,  and 
much  more  to  overrule  our  prayers  and  desires  into  an  absolute 
acquiescence  in  his  all-wise  disposal  of  things ;  and  to  convince 
us,  that  our  prayers  are  sometimes  best  answered,  when  our 
desires  are  most  opposed. 

In  fine,  to  state  the  whole  matter  of  our  prayers  in  one  word  ; 
nothing  can  be  fit  for  us  to  pray  for,  but  what  is  fit  and  honour- 
able for  our  great  Mediator  and  Master  of  requests,  Jesus  Christ 
himself,  to  intercede  for.  This  is  to  be  the  unchangeable  rule 
and  measure  of  all  our  petitions.    And  then,  if  Christ  is  to  con- 


AGAINST   LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


249 


vey  these  our  petitions  to  his  Father,  can  any  one  dare  to  make 
him,  who  was  holiness  and  purity  itself,  an  advocate  and  solicitor 
for  his  lusts  ?  Him,  who  was  nothing  but  meekness,  and  lowliness, 
and  humility,  his  providetore  for  such  things  as  can  only  feed  his 
pride,  and  flush  his  ambition  ?  No,  certainly  ;  when  we  come  as 
suppliants  to  the  throne  of  grace,  where  Christ  sits  as  intercessor 
at  God's  right  hand,  nothing  can  be  fit  to  proceed  out  of  our 
mouth,  but  what  is  fit  to  pass  through  his. 

3.  The  third  and  last  thing  that  calls  for  a  previous  medita- 
tion to  our  prayers,  is  the  order  and  disposition  of  them.  For 
though  God  does  not  command  us  to  set  off  our  prayers  with 
dress  and  artifice,  to  flourish  it  in  trope  and  metaphor,  to  beg  our 
daily  bread  in  blank  verse,  or  to  show  any  thing  of  the  poet  in 
our  devotions,  but  indigence  and  want ;  I  say,  though  God  is  far 
from  requiring  such  things  of  us  in  our  prayers,  yet  he  requires 
that  we  should  manage  them  with  sense  and  reason.  Fineness  is 
not  expected,  but  decency  is ;  and  though  we  cannot  declaim  as 
orators,  yet  he  will  have  us  speak  like  men,  and  tender  him  the 
results  of  that  understanding  and  judgment,  that  essentially  con- 
stitute a  rational  nature. 

But  I  shall  briefly  cast  what  I  have  to  say  upon  this  panic ulai 
into  these  following  assertions : 

1.  That  nothing:  can  express  our  reverence  to  God  in  prayer, 
that  would  pass  for  irreverence  towards  a  great  man.  Let  any 
subject  tender  his  prince  a  petition  fraught  with  nonsense  and 
incoherence,  confusion  and  impertinence ;  and  can  he  expect  that 
majesty-  should  answer  it  with  any  thing  but  a  deaf  ear,  a  frown- 
ing eye,  or  at  best,  vouchsafe  it  any  other  reward,  but  by  a 
gracious  oblivion  to  forgive  the  person,  and  forget  the  petition  ? 

2.  Nothing  absurd  and  irrational,  and  such  as  a  wise  man 
would  despise,  can  be  acceptable  to  God  in  prayer.  Solomon 
expressly  tells  us  in  Eccles.  v.  4,  that  "  God  has  no  pleasure  in 
fools nor  is  it  possible  that  an  infinite  wisdom  should.  The 
scripture  all  along  expresses  sin  and  wickedness  by  the  name  of 
folly:  and  therefore,  certainly  folly  is  too  near  akin  to  it,  to  find 
any  approbation  from  God  in  so  great  a  dun*.  It  is  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  heart,  and  not  of  the  head,  that  is  the  best  inditer 
of  our  petitions.  That  which  proceeds  from  the  latter  is  un- 
doubtedly the  sacrifice  of  fools ;  and  God  is  never  more  weary 
of  sacrifice,  than  when  a  fool  is  the  priest,  and  folly  the  oblation. 

3.  And  lastly,  Nothing  rude,  slight,  and  careless,  or  indeed 
less  than  the  very-  best  that  a  man  can  offer,  can  be  acceptable  or 
pleasing  to  God  in  prayer.  "  If  ye  offer  the  blind  for  sacrifice,  is 
it  not  evil  ?  If  ye  offer  the  lame  and  the  sick,  is  it  not  evil  ? 
Offer  it  now  to  thy  governor,  and  see  whether  he  will  be  pleased 
with  thee,  or  accept  thy  person,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,"  Mai.  i. 
8.  God  rigidly  expects  a  return  of  his  own  gifts ;  and  where  he 
has  given  ability,  will  be  served  by  acts  proportionable  to  it : 

Vol.  L — 32 


250 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  XV. 


and  he  who  has  parts  to  raise  and  propagate  his  own  honour  by, 
but  none  to  employ  in  the  worship  of  him  that  gave  them,  does, 
as  I  may  so  express  it,  refuse  to  wear  God's  livery  in  his  own 
service,  adds  sacrilege  to  profaneness,  strips  and  starves  his  devo- 
tions, and,  in  a  word,  falls  directly  under  the  dint  of  that  curse, 
denounced  in  the  last  verse  of  the  first  of  Malachi,  "  Cursed  be 
the  deceiver  that  hath  in  his  flock  a  male,  and  voweth  and  sacri- 
ficeth  to  the  Lord  a  corrupt  thing."  The  same  is  here  both  the 
deceiver  and  the  deceived  too  ;  for  God  very  well  knows  what  he 
gives  men,  and  why ;  and  where  he  has  bestowed  judgment, 
learning,  and  utterance,  will  not  endure  that  men  should  be  accu- 
rate in  their  discourse,  and  loose  in  their  devotions ;  or  think, 
that  the  great  Author  of  "  every  good  and  perfect  gift"  will  be 
put  off  with  ramble  and  confused  talk,  babble,  and  tautology. 

And  thus  much  for  the  order  and  disposition  of  our  prayers, 
which  certainly  requires  precedent  thought  and  meditation.  God 
has  declared  himself  the  God  of  order  in  all  things ;  and  will 
have  it  observed  in  what  he  commands  others,  as  well  as  in  what 
he  does  himself.  Order  is  the  great  rule  or  art  by  which  God 
made  the  world,  and  by  which  he  still  governs  it :  nay,  the  world 
itself  is  nothing  else ;  and  all  this  glorious  system  of  things  is  but 
chaos  put  into  order.  And  how  then  can  God,  who  has  so  emi- 
nently owned  himself  concerned  for  this  excellent  thing,  brook 
such  absurdity  and  confusion,  as  the  slovenly  and  profane  negli- 
gence some  treat  him  with,  in  their  most  solemn  addresses  to  him  ? 
All  which  is  the  natural,  unavoidable  consequent  of  unprepared- 
ness,  and  want  of  premeditation ;  without  which,  whosoever  pre- 
sumes to  pray,  cannot  be  so  properly  said  to  approach  to,  as  to 
break  in  upon  God.  And  surely,  he  who  is  so  hardy  as  to  do 
so,  has  no  reason  in  the  earth  to  expect  that  the  success  which 
follows  his  prayers,  should  be  greater  than  the  preparation  that 
goes  before  them. 

Now  from  what  has  been  hitherto  discoursed  of  this  first  and 
grand  qualification  of  a  pious  and  devout  prayer,  to  wit,  preme- 
ditation of  thought,  what  can  be  so  naturally  and  so  usefully  in- 
ferred, as  the  high  expediency,  or  rather  the  absolute  necessity  of 
a  set  form  of  prayer,  to  guide  our  devotions  by  ?  We  have  lived 
in  an  age  that  has  despised,  contradicted,  and  counter? cted  all  the 
principles  and  practices  of  the  primitive  Christians,  in  taking  the 
measures  of  their  duty  both  to  God  and  man,  and  of  their  behaviour 
both  in  matters  civil  and  religious;  but  in  nothing  more  scanda- 
lously, than  in  their  vile  abuse  of  the  great  duty  of  prayer ;  con- 
cerning which,  though  it  may  with  the  clearest  truth  be  affirmed, 
that  there  has  been  no  church  yet  of  any  account  in  the  Christian 
world,  but  what  has  governed  its  public  worship  of  God  by  a 
liturgy  or  set  form  of  prayer ;  yet  these  enthusiastic  innovators, 
the  bold  and  blind  reformers  of  all  antiquity,  and  wiser  than  the 
whole  catholic  church  besides,  introduced  into  the  room  of  it  a 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


251 


saucy,  senseless,  extemporary  way  of  speaking  to  God ;  affirming, 
that  this  was  a  praying  by  the  Spirit ;  and  that  the  use  of  all  set 
forms  was  stinting  of  the  Spirit.  A  pretence,  I  confess,  popular 
and  plausible  enough  with  such  idiots,  as  take  the  sound  of  words 
for  the  sense  of  them.  But,  for  the  full  confutation  of  it,  which, 
I  hope,  shall  be  done  both  easily  and  .briefly  too,  I  shall  advance 
this  one  assertion  in  direct  contradiction  to  that ;  namely, 

That  the  praying  by  a  set  form  is  not  a  stinting  of  the  Spirit, 
and  the  praying  extemporary  truly  and  properly  is  so. 

For  the  proving  and  making  out  of  which,  we  will  first  consider, 
what  it  is  to  pray  by  the  Spirit:  a  thing  much  talked  of,  but 
not  so  convenient  for  the  talkers  of  it,  and  pretenders  to  it,  to 
have  it  rightly  stated  and  understood.  In  short,  it  includes  in  it 
these  two  things  : 

1.  A  praying  with  the  heart,  which  is  sometimes  called  the 
spirit,  or  inward  man  ;  and  so  it  is  properly  opposed  to  hypocri- 
tical lip-devotions,  in  which  the  heart  or  spirit  does  not  go  along 
with  a  man's  words. 

2.  It  includes  in  it  also  a  praying  according  to  the  rules  pre- 
scribed by  God's  holy  Spirit,  and  held  forth  to  us  in  his  revealed 
word,  which  word  was  both  dictated  and  confirmed  by  this  Spirit ; 
and  so  it  is  opposed  to  the  praying  unlawfully  or  unwarrantably  ; 
and  that  either  in  respect  of  the  matter  or  manner  of  our  prayers  : 
as  when  we  desire  of  God  such  things,  or  in  such  a  way,  as  the 
Spirit  of  God,  speaking  in  his  holy  word,  does  by  no  means 
warrant  or  approve  of.  So  that  to  pray  by  the  Spirit,  signifies 
neither  more  nor  less,  but  to  pray  knowingly,  heartily,  and 
affectionately  for  such  things,  and  in  such  a  manner,  as  the  Holy 
Ghost  in  scripture  either  commands  or  allows  of.  As  for  any 
other  kind  of  praying  by  the  Spirit,  upon  the  best  inquiry  that  I 
can  make  into  these  matters,  I  can  find  none.  And  if  some  say 
(as  I  know  they  both  impudently  and  blasphemously  do)  that  to 
pray  by  the  Spirit,  is  to  have  the  Spirit  immediately  inspiring 
them,  and  by  such  inspiration  speaking  within  them,  and  so  dic- 
tating their  prayers  to  them,  let  them  either  produce  plain  scrip- 
ture, or  do  a  miracle  to  prove  this  by.  But  till  then,  he  who 
shall  consider  what  kind  of  prayers  these  pretenders  to  the  Spirit 
have  been  notable  for,  will  find,  that  they  have  as  little  cause  to 
father  their  prayers,  as  their  practices,  upon  the  Spirit  of  God. 

These  two  things  are  certain,  and  I  do  particularly  recommend 
them  to  your  observation.  One,  that  this  way  of  praying  by  the 
Spirit,  as  they  call  it,  was  begun  and  first  brought  into  use  here 
in  England,  in  queen  Elizabeth's  days,  by  a  popish  priest  and 
Dominican  friar,  one  Faithful  Commin  by  name  ;  who,  counter- 
feiting himself  a  protestant,  and  a  zealot  of  the  highest  form,  set 
up  this  new  spiritual  way  of  praying,  with  a  design  to  brins  the 
people  first  to  a  contempt,  and  from  thence  to  an  utter  hatred 
and  disuse  of  our  common  prayer,  which  he  still  reviled  as  only  a 


252 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XV. 


translation  of  the  mass,  thereby  to  distract  men's  minds,  and  to 
divide  our  church.  And  this  he  did  with  such  success,  that  we 
have  lived  to  see  the  effects  of  his  labours  in  the  utter  subversion 
of  church  and  state.  Which  hellish  negotiation,  when  this 
malicious  hypocrite  came  to  Rome  to  give  the  pope  an  account 
of,  he  received  of  him,  as  so  notable  a  service  well  deserved, 
besides  a  thousand  thanks,  two  thousand  ducats  for  his  pains. 
So  that  now  you  see  here  the  original  of  this  extemporary  way 
of  praying  by  the  Spirit.  The  other  thing  that  I  would  observe 
to  you,  is,  that  in  the  neighbour  nation  of  Scotland,  one  of  the 
greatest  monsters*  of  men  that  I  believe  ever  lived,  and  actually 
in  league  with  the  devil,  was  yet,  by  the  confession  of  all  that 
heard  him,  the  most  excellent  at  this  extemporary  way  of  pray- 
ing by  the  Spirit  of  any  man  in  his  time ;  none  was  able  to  come 
near  him,  or  to  compare  with  him.  But  surely  now,  he  who 
shall  venture  to  ascribe  the  prayers  of  such  a  wretch,  made  up  of 
adulteries,  incest,  witchcraft,  and  other  villanies,  not  to  be  named, 
to  the  Spirit  of  God,  may  as  well  strike  in  with  the  Pharisees, 
and  ascribe  the  miracles  of  Christ  to  the  devil.  And  thus  having 
shown  both  what  ought  to  be  meant  by  praying  by  the  Spirit, 
and  what  ought  not,  cannot  be  meant  by  it;  let  us  now  see 
whether  a  set  form,  or  this  extemporary  way,  be  the  greater  hin- 
derer  and  stinter  of  it :  in  order  to  which,  I  shall  lay  down  these 
three  assertions. 

1.  That  the  soul  or  mind  of  man  is  but  of  a  limited  nature  in 
all  its  workings,  and  consequently  cannot  supply  two  distinct 
faculties  at  the  same  time,  to  the  same  height  of  operation. 

2.  That  the  finding  words  and  expressions  for  prayer,  is  the 
proper  business  of  the  brain  and  the  invention ;  and  that  the 
finding  devotion  and  affection  to  accompany  and  go  along  with 
those  expressions,  is  properly  the  work  and  business  of  the  heart. 

3.  That  this  devotion  and  affection  is  indispensably  required  in 
prayer,  as  the  principal  and  most  essential  part  of  it,  and  that  in 
which  the  spirituality  of  it  does  most  properly  consist. 

Now  from  these  three  things  put  together,  this  must  naturally 
and  necessarily  follow ;  that  as  spiritual  prayer,  or  praying  by 
the  Spirit,  taken  in  the  right  sense  of  the  word,  consists  properly 
in  that  affection  and  devotion,  that  the  heart  exercises  and  em- 
ploys in  the  work  of  prayer :  so,  whatsoever  gives  the  soul  scope 
and  liberty  to  exercise  and  employ  this  affection  and  devotion, 
that  does  most  effectually  help  and  enlarge  the  spirit  of  prayer; 
and  whatsoever  diverts  the  soul  from  employing  such  affection 
and  devotion,  that  does  most  directly  stint  and  hinder  it.  Accord- 
ingly let  this  now  be  our  rule  whereby  to  judge  of  the  efficacy 
of  a  set  form,  and  of  the  extemporary  way  in  the  present  business 
As  for  a  set  form,  in  which  the  worcls  are  ready  prepared  to  our 
hands,  the  soul  has  nothing  to  do,  but  to  attend  to  the  work  of 

*  Major  John  Weyer.    See  Ravaillac  Rediviv. 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


253 


raising  the  affections  and  devotions  to  go  along  with  those  words : 
so  that  all  the  powers  of  the  soul  are  taken  up  in  applying  the 
heart  to  this  great  duty :  and  it  is  the  exercise  of  the  heart,  as 
has  been  already  shown,  that  is  truly  and  properly  a  praying  by 
the  Spirit.  On  the  contrary,  in  all  extemporary  prayer,  the 
powers  and  faculties  of  the  soul  are  called  off'  from  dealing  with 
the  heart  and  the  affections ;  and  that  both  in  the  speaker  and  in 
the  hearer ;  both  in  him  who  makes,  and  in  him  who  is  to  join  in 
such  prayers. 

And  first  for  the  minister,  who  makes  and  utters  such  extempo- 
rary prayers.  He  is  wholly  employing  his  invention,  both  to  con- 
ceive matter,  and  find  words  and  expressions  to  clothe  it  in.  This 
is  certainly  the  work  which  takes  up  his  mind  in  this  exercise :  and 
since  the  nature  of  man's  mind  is  such,  that  it  cannot  with  the 
same  vigour,  at  the  same  time,  attend  the  work  of  invention,  and 
that  of  raising  the  affections  also ;  nor  measure  out  the  same 
supply  of  spirits  and  intention  for  the  carrying  on  the  operations 
of  the  head,  and  those  of  the  heart  too:  it  is  certain,  that  while 
the  head  is  so  much  employed,  the  heart  must  be  idle,  and  very 
little  employed ;  and  perhaps  not  at  all :  and  consequently,  if  to 
pray  by  the  spirit  be  to  pray  with  the  heart  and  the  affections ;  it 
is  also  as  certain,  that  while  a  man  prays  extempore,  he  does 
not  pray  by  the  spirit :  nay,  the  very  truth  of  it  is,  that  while  he 
is  so  doing,  he  is  not  praying  at  all,  but  he  is  studying,  he  is 
beating  his  brain,  while  he  should  be  drawing  out  his  affections. 

And  then  for  the  people  that  are  to  hear,  and  join  with  him  in 
such  prayers ;  it  is  manifest,  that  they,  not  knowing  beforehand 
what  the  minister  will  say,  must,  as  soon  as  they  do  hear  him, 
presently  busy  and  bestir  their  minds,  both  to  apprehend  and 
understand  the  meaning  of  what  they  hear ;  and  withal,  to  judge 
whether  it  be  of  such  a  nature,  as  to  be  fit  for  them  to  join  and 
concur  with  him  in.  So  that  the  people  also  are,  by  this  course, 
put  to  study,  and  to  employ  their  apprehending  and  judging 
faculties,  while  they  should  be  exerting  their  affections  and  devo- 
tions ;  and  consequently  by  this  means  the  spirit  of  prayer  is 
stinted,  as  well  in  the  congregation  that  follows,  as  in  the  minister, 
who  first  conceives  a  prayer  after  their  extemporary  way :  which 
is  a  truth  so  clear,  and  indeed  self-evident,  that  it  is  impossible 
that  it  should  need  any  further  arguments  to  demonstrate  or  make 
it  out. 

The  sum  of  all  is  this ;  that  since  a  set  form  of  prayer  leaves 
the  soul  wholly  free  to  employ  its  affections  and  devotions,  in 
which  the  spirit  of  prayer  does  most  properly  consist ;  it  follows, 
that  the  spirit  of  prayer  is  thereby,  in  a  singular  manner,  helped, 
promoted,  and  enlarged  :  and  since,  on  the  other  hand,  the  extem- 
porary way  withdraws  and  takes  off  the  soul  from  employing  its 
affections,  and  engages  it  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  about  the  use  of 
its  invention ;  it  as  plainly  follows,  that  the  spirit  of  prayer  is,  by 


254  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  XV. 

this  means,  unavoidably  cramped  and  hindered,  and,  to  use  their 
own  word,  stinted ;  which  was  the  proposition  that  I  undertook 
to  prove.  But  there  are  two  things,  I  confess,  that  are  extremely- 
hindered  and  stinted  by  a  set  form  of  prayer,  and  equally 
furthered  and  enlarged  by  the  extemporary  way;  which,  with- 
out all  doubt,  is  the  true  cause  why  the  former  is  so  much  decried, 
and  the  latter  so  much  extolled  by  the  men  whom  we  are  now 
pleading  with.  The  first  of  which  is  pride  and  ostentation ;  the 
other  faction  and  sedition. 

1.  And  first  for  pride.  I  do  not  in  the  least  question,  but 
the  chief  design  of  such  as  use  the  extemporary  way,  is  to  amuse 
the  unthinking  rabble  with  an  admiration  of  their  gifts;  their 
whole  devotion  proceeding  from  no  other  principle,  but  only  a  love 
to  hear  themselves  talk.  And  I  believe  it  would  put  Lucifer 
himself  hard  to  it  to  outvie  the  pride  of  one  of  those  fellows 
pouring  out  his  extemporary  stuff  amongst  his  ignorant,  whining, 
factious  followers,  listening  to  and  applauding  his  copious  flow 
and  cant,  with  the  ridiculous  accents  of  their  impertinent  groans. 
And  the  truth  is,  extemporary  prayer,  even  when  best  and  most 
dexterously  performed,  is  nothing  else  but  a  business  of  inven- 
tion and  wit,  such  as  it  is,  and  requires  no  more  to  it,  but  a 
teeming  imagination,  a  bold  front,  and  a  ready  expression ;  and 
deserves  much  the  same  commendation  (were  it  not  in  a  matter 
too  serious  to  be  sudden  upon)  which  is  due  to  extemporary 
verses :  only  with  this  difference,  that  there  is  necessary  to  these 
latter,  a  competent  measure  of  wit  and  learning ;  whereas  the 
former  may  be  done  with  very  little  wit,  and  no  learning  at  all. 

And  now,  can  any  sober  person  think  it  reasonable,  that  the 
public  devotions  of  a  whole  congregation  should  be  under  the 
conduct,  and  at  the  mercy  of  a  pert,  empty,  conceited  holder- 
forth,  whose  chief,  if  not  sole,  intent  is  to  vaunt  his  spiritual 
clack,  and,  as  I  may  so  speak,  to  pray  prizes ;  whereas  prayer  is 
a  duty,  that  recommends  itself  to  the  acceptance  of  almighty 
God,  by  no  other  qualification  so  much,  as  by  the  profoundest 
humility,  and  the  lowest  esteem  that  a  man  can  possibly  have  of 
himself? 

Certainly  the  extemporizing  faculty  is  never  more  out  of  its 
element,  than  in  the  pulpit :  though  even  here,  it  is  much  more 
excusable  in  a  sermon,  than  in  a  prayer;  forasmuch  as  in  that, 
a  man  addresses  himself  but  to  men ;  men  like  himself,  whom  he 
may  therefore  make  bold  with;  as,  no  doubt,  for  so  doing,  they 
will  also  make  bold  with  him.  Besides  the  peculiar  advantage 
attending  all  such  sudden  conceptions,  that  as  they  are  quickly 
born,  so  they  quickly  die  :  it  being  seldom  known,  where  the 
speaker  has  so  very  fluent  an  invention,  but  the  hearer  also  has 
the  gift  of  as  fluent  a  memory. 

2.  The  other  thing  that  has  been  hitherto  so  little  befriended 
by  a  set  form  of  prayer,  and  so  very  much  by  the  extemporary 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


255 


wav,  is  faction  and  sedition.  It  has  been  always  found  an  excel- 
lent way  of  girding  at  the  gOYernment  in  scripture  phrase.  And 
we  all  know  the  common  dialect,  in  which  the  great  masters  of 
this  art  used  to  pray  for  the  king,  and  which  may  justly  pass  for 
only  a  cleanlier  and  more  refined  kind  of  libelling  him  in  the  Lord. 
As,  "  That  God  will  turn  his  heart,  and  open  his  eyes :"  as  if  he 
were  a  pagan,  yet  to  be  converted  to  Christianity  ;  with  many 
other  sly,  virulent,  and  malicious  insinuations,  which  we  may  every 
day  hear  of  from  those  mints  of  treason  and  rebellion,  their  conven- 
ticles ;  and  for  which,  and  a  great  deal  less,  some  princes  and 
governments  would  make  them  not  only  eat  their  words,  but  the 
tongue  that  spoke  them  too.  In  fine,  let  all  their  extemporary 
harangues  be  considered  and  duly  weighed,  and  you  shall  find  a 
spirit  of  pride,  faction,  and  sedition,  predominant  in  them  all :  the  only 
spirit  which  those  impostors  do  really  and  indeed  pray  by. 

I  have  been  so  much  the  longer  and  the  earnester  against  this 
intoxicating,  bewitching  cheat  of  extemporary  prayer,  being  fully 
satisfied  in  my  conscience,  that  it  has  been  all  along  the  devil's 
masterpiece  and  prime  engine  to  overthrow  our  church  by.  For 
I  look  upon  this  as  a  most  unanswerable  truth,  that  whosoever 
renders  the  public  worship  of  God  contemptible  amongst  us, 
must  in  the  same  degree  weaken  and  discredit  our  whole  religion. 
And,  I  hope,  I  have  also  proved  it  to  be  a  truth  altogether  as 
clear,  that  this  extemporary  way  naturally  brings  all  the  con- 
tempt upon  the  worship  of  God,  that  both  the  folly  and  faction 
of  men  can  possibly  expose  it  to.  And  therefore  as  a  thing 
neither  subservient  to  the  true  purposes  of  religion,  nor  grounded 
upon  principles  of  reason,  nor  lastly,  suitable  to  the  practice  of 
antiquity,  ought  by  all  means  to  be  exploded  and  cast  out  of 
every  sober  and  well  ordered  church ;  or  that  will  be  sure  to 
throw  the  church  itself  out  of  doors. 

And  thus  I  have  at  length  finished  what  I  had  to  say  of  the 
first  ingredient  of  a  pious  and  reverential  prayer,  which  was 
premeditation  of  thought;  prescribed  to  us  in  these  words,  "  Let 
not  thy  mouth  be  rash,  nor  thy  heart  be  hasty  to  utter  any  thing 
before  God."  Which  excellent  words,  and  most  wise  advice  of 
Solomon,  whosoever  can  reconcile  to  the  expediency,  decency,  or 
usefulness  of  extemporary  prayer,  I  shall  acknowledge  him  a  man 
of  greater  ability  and  parts  of  mind  than  Solomon  himself. 

The  other  ingredient  of  a  reverential  and  duly  qualified  prayer, 
is  a  pertinent  brevity  of  expression,  mentioned  and  recommended  in 
that  part  of  the  text,  "Therefore  let  thy  words  be  few."  But 
this  I  cannot  dispatch  now,  and  therefore  shall  not  enter  upon  it 
at  this  time. 

Now  to  God  the  father,  God  the  Son,  and  God  the  Holy 
Ghost,  three  persons  and  one  God,  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as 
is  most  due,  all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now 
and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


256 


SERMON  XVI. 

AGAINST    LONG    EXTEMPORARY    PRAYERS  ;    IN    BEHALF    OF  THE 
LITURGY    OF    THE    CHURCH    OF  ENGLAND. 

ECCLESIASTES  V.  2. 

Be  not  rash  with  thy  mouth,  and  let  not  thine  lieart  be  hasty  to  utter 
any  thing  before  God:  for  God  is  in  heaven,  and  thou  upon 
earth  :  therefore  let  thy  words  be  few. 

I  formerly  began  a  discourse  upon  these  words,  and  observed 
in  them  these  three  things. 

1.  That  whosoever  appears  in  the  house  of  God,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  way  of  prayer,  ought  to  reckon  himself,  in  a  more 
especial  manner,  placed  in  the  sight  and  presence  of  God.  And, 

2.  That  the  vast  and  infinite  distance  between  God  and  him, 
ought  to  create  in  him  all  imaginable  awe  and  reverence  in  such 
his  addresses  to  God. 

3.  And  lastly,  That  this  reverence  required  of  him,  is  to  con- 
sist in  a  serious  preparation  of  his  thoughts,  and  a  sober  govern- 
ment of  his  expressions:  neither  is  his  "mouth  to  be  rash,  nor 
his  heart  to  be  hasty  in  uttering  any  thing  before  God." 

These  three  things  I  showed  were  evidently  contained  in  the 
words,  and  did  as  evidently  contain  the  whole  sense  of  them. 
But  I  gathered  them  all  into  this  one  proposition ;  namely, 

That  premeditation  of  thought,  and  brevity  of  expression,  are 
the  great  ingredients  of  that  reverence  that  is  required  to  a  pious, 
acceptable,  and  devout  prayer. 

The  first  of  these,  which  is  premeditation  of  thought,  I  then 
fully  treated  of,  and  despatched ;  and  shall  now  proceed  to  the 
other,  which  is  a  pertinent  brevity  of  expression:  "  Therefore  let 
thy  words  be  few." 

Concerning  which  we  shall  observe,  first  in  general,  that  to  be 
able  to  express  our  minds  briefly  and  fully  too,  is  absolutely  the 
greatest  perfection  and  commendation  that  speech  is  capable  of ; 
such  a  mutual  communication  of  our  thoughts  being,  as  I  may  so 
speak,  the  next  approach  to  intuition :  and  the  nearest  imitation 
of  the  converse  of  blessed  spirits  made  perfect,  that  our  condition 
in  this  world  can  possibly  raise  us  to.  Certainly  the  greatest  and 
the  wisest  conceptions  that  ever  issued  from  the  mind  of  man, 
have  been  couched  under,  and  delivered  in  a  few,  close,  home,  and 
significant  words. 

But,  to  derive  the  credit  of  this  way  of  speaking  much  higher, 
and  from  an  example  infinitely  greater,  than  the  greatest  human 
wisdom,  was  it  not  authorized  and  ennobled  by  God  himself  in 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


257 


his  making  of  the  world  ?  Was  not  the  work  of  all  the  six  days 
transacted  in  so  many  words  ?  There  was  no  circumlocution,  or 
amplification  in  the  case,  which  makes  the  rhetorician  Longi- 
nus,  in  his  book  of  the  Loftiness  of  Speech,  so  much  admire  the 
height  and  grandeur  of  Moses'  style  in  his  first  chapter  of  Genesis, 

'O  xCjv  'lovSatwv  $eopo$eTrrf,  ovx  o  rv^wr  ai^p'     "  The    lawgiver    of  the 

Jews,"  says  he,  meaning  Moses,  "  was  no  ordinary  man ;"  irttibr, 

-try  rov  Qtov  Sviapiv  xata  rqv  a%lav  iyvd>pi3e  xd^i^vsv,   "  because,"  says 

he,  "  he  set  forth  the  divine  power  suitably  to  the  majesty  and 
greatness  of  it."    But  how  did  he  this?    Why,  i»S*>$'c*  t$  titrfktyaj 

ypa-^aj  twi1  rouwr  ftrtfv  o  ©foj,  fi  i   ytvtoQa  $a>s,  xal  tytvtto'  ysvioOu 

7^,  xal  iyivtto,  &c.  "  For  that,"  says  he,  "  in  the  very  entrance  of 
his  laws,  he  gives  us  this  short  and  pleasant  account  of  the  whole 
creation :  '  God  said,  Let  there  be  light,  and  there  was  light ;  Let 
there  be  an  earth,  a  sea,  and  a  firmament,  and  there  was  so.'  "  So 
that  all  this  high  elogy  and  encomium  given  by  this  heathen  of 
Moses,  sprang  only  from  the  majestic  brevity  of  this  one  expression: 
an  expression  so  suited  to  the  greatness  of  a  Creator,  and  so  expres- 
sive of  his  boundless  creative  power,  as  a  power  infinitely  above 
all  control  or  possibility  of  finding  the  least  obstacle  or  delay  in 
achieving  its  mightiest  and  most  stupendous  works.  Heaven,  and 
earth,  and  all  the  host  of  both,  as  it  were,  dropped  from  his  mouth ; 
and  nature  itself  was  but  the  product  of  a  word;  a  word  not 
designed  to  express,  but  to  constitute  and  give  a  being ;  and  not  so 
much  the  representation,  as  the  cause,  of  what  it  signified. 

This  was  God's  way  of  speaking  in  his  first  forming  of  the 
universe.  And  was  it  not  so,  in  the  next  grand  instance  of  his 
power,  his  governing  of  it  too  ?  For  are  not  the  great  instruments 
of  government,  his  laws,  drawn  up  and  digested  into  a  few  sen- 
tences ;  the  whole  body  of  them  containing  but  ten  command- 
ments, and  some  of  those  commandments  not  so  many  words? 
Nay,  and  have  we  not  these  also  brought  into  yet  a  narrower 
compass  by  him,  who  best  understood  them  ?  "  Thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and 
thy  neighbour  as  thyself:"  precepts,  nothing  like  the  tedious, 
endless,  confused  trash  of  human  laws ;  laws  so  numerous,  that 
they  not  only  exceed  men's  practice,  but  also  surpass  their  arith- 
metic ;  and  so  voluminous,  that  no  mortal  head,  nor  shoulders 
neither,  must  ever  pretend  themselves  able  to  bear  them.  In 
God's  laws  the  words  are  few,  the  sense  vast  and  infinite.  In 
human  laws,  you  shall  be  sure  to  have  words  enough ;  but,  for 
the  most  part,  to  discern  the  sense  and  reason  of  them,  you  had 
need  read  them  with  a  microscope. 

And  thus  having  shown  how  the  Almighty  utters  himself 
when  he  speaks,  and  that  upon  the  greatest  occasions ;  let  us  now 
descend  from  heaven  to  earth,  from  God  to  man,  and  show,  that 
it  is  no  presumption  for  us  to  conform  our  words,  as  well  as  our 

Vol.  I.— 33  y  2 


258 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVI. 


actions,  fo  the  supreme  pattern,  and,  according  to  our  poor  mea- 
sures, to  imitate  the  wisdom  that  we  adore.  And  for  this,  has  it 
not  been  noted  by  the  best  observers  and  the  ablest  judges  both 
of  things  and  persons,  that  the  wisdom  of  any  people  or  nation  has 
been  most  seen  in  the  proverbs  and  short  sayings  commonly  re- 
ceived amongst  them?  And  what  is  a  proverb,  but  the  experience 
and  observation  of  several  ages,  gathered  and  summed  up  into 
one  expression  ?  The  scripture  vouches  Solomon  for  the  wisest 
of  men,  and  they  are  his  Proverbs  that  prove  him  so.  The  seven 
wise  men  of  Greece,  so  famous  for  their  wisdom  all  the  world  over, 
acquired  all  that  fame,  each  of  them  by  a  single  sentence,  con- 
sisting of  two  or  three  words.  And  yvu$i  otavtov  still  lives 
and  flourishes  in  the  mouths  of  all,  while  many  vast  volumes  are 
extinct,  and  sunk  into  dust  and  utter  oblivion.  And  then  for 
books,  we  shall  generally  find  that  the  most  excellent,  in  any  art 
or  science,  have  been  still  the  smallest  and  most  compendious: 
and  this  not  without  ground ;  for  it  is  an  argument  that  the  au- 
thor was  a  master  of  what  he  wrote  ;  and  had  a  clear  notion,  and 
a  full  comprehension  of  the  subject  before  him.  For  the  reason 
of  things  lies  in  a  little  compass,  if  the  mind  could  at  any  time  be 
so  happy  as  to  light  upon  it.  Most  of  the  writings  and  discourses 
in  the  world  are  but  illustration  and  rhetoric,  which  signifies  as 
much  as  nothing  to  a  mind  eager  in  pursuit  after  the  causes  and 
philosophical  truth  of  things.  It  is  the  work  of  fancy  to  enlarge, 
but  of  judgment  to  shorten  and  contract ;  and  therefore  this  must 
needs  be  as  far  above  the  other,  as  judgment  is  a  greater  and  a 
nobler  faculty  than  fancy  or  imagination.  All  philosophy  is  re- 
duced to  a  few  principles,  and  those  principles  comprised  in  a  few 
propositions.  And  as  the  whole  structure  of  speculation  rests 
upon  three  or  four  axioms  or  maxims  ;  so  that  of  practice  also 
bears  upon  a  very  small  number  of  rules.  And  surely,  there  'was 
never  yet  any  rule  or  maxim  that  filled  a  volume,  or  took  up  a 
week's  time  to  be  got  by  heart.  No ;  these  are  the  apices  remm, 
the  tops  and  sums,  the  very  spirit  and  life  of  things  extracted  and 
abridged ;  just  as  all  the  lines  drawn  from  the  vastest  circum- 
ference, do  at  length  meet  and  unite  in  the  smallest  of  things,  a 
point ;  and  it  is  but  a  very  little  piece  of  wood,  with  which  a 
true  artist  will  measure  all  the  timber  in  the  world.  The 
truth  is,  there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  art  or  science,  could  not 
the  mind  of  man  gather  the  general  natures  of  things  out  of  the 
numberless  heap  of  particulars,  and  then  bind  them  up  into  such 
short  aphorisms  or  propositions  ;  that  so  they  may  be  made  portable 
to  the  memory,  and  thereby  become  ready  and  at  hand  for  the 
judgment  to  apply,  and  make  use  of,  as  there  shall  be  occasion. 

In  fine,  brevity  and  succinctness  of  speech  is  that  which,  in 
philosophy  or  speculation,  we  call  maxim,  and  first  principle ;  in 
the  counsels  and  resolves  of  practical  wisdom,  and  the  deep 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS.  >  259 

mvsteries  of  religion,  oracle;  and  lastly,  in  matters  of  wit,  and 
the  finenesses  of  imagination,  epigram.  All  of  them,  severally 
and  in  their  kinds,  the  greatest  and  the  noblest  things  that  the 
mind  of  man  can  show  the  force  and  dexterity  of  its  faculties  in. 

And  now,  if  this  be  the  highest  excellency  and  perfection  of 
speech  in  all  other  things,  can  we  assign  any  true,  solid  reason, 
why  it  should  not  be  so  likewise  in  prayer  ?  Nay,  is  there  not 
rather  the  clearest  reason  imaginable,  why  it  should  be  much 
more  so ;  since  most  of  the  forementioned  things  are  but 
addresses  to  a  human  understanding,  which  may  need  as  many 
words  as  may  fill  a  volume,  to  make  it  understand  the  truth  of 
one  line?  Whereas  prayer  is  an  address  to  that  eternal  mind, 
which  (as  we  have  shown  before)  such  as  rationally  invocate, 
pretend  not  to  inform.  Nevertheless,  since  the  nature  of  man  is 
such,  that  while  we  are  yet  in  the  body,  our  reverence  and  wor- 
ship of  God  must  of  necessity  proceed  in  some  analog}'  to  the 
reverence  that  we  show  to  the  grandees  of  this  world,  we  will 
here  see,  what  the  judgment  of  all  wise  men  is,  concerning  few- 
ness of  words,  when  we  appear  as  suppliants  before  our  earthly 
superiors  ;  and  we  shall  find,  that  they  generally  allow  it  to  im- 
port these  three  things:  1.  Modesty;  2.  Discretion;  and  3. 
Height  of  respect  to  the  person  addressed  to.  And  first,  for 
modesty.  Modesty  is  a  kind  of  shame  or  bashfulness,  proceeding 
from  the  sense  a  man  has  of  his  own  defects,  compared  with  the 
perfections  of  him  whom  he  comes  before.  And  that  which  is 
modesty  towards  men,  is  worship  and  devotion  towards  God.  It 
is  a  virtue  that  makes  a  man  unwilling  to  be  seen,  and  fearful  to 
be  heard ;  and  yet,  for  that  very  cause,  never  fails  to  make  him 
both  seen  with  favour,  and  heard  with  attention.  It  loves  not 
many  words,  nor  indeed  needs  them.  For  modesty  addressing  to 
any  one  of  a  generous  worth  and  honour,  is  sure  to  have  that 
man's  honour  for  its  advocate,  and  his  generosity  for  its  inter- 
cessor. And  how  then  is  it  possible  for  such  a  virtue  to  run  out 
into  words  ?  Loquacity  storms  the  ear,  but  modesty  takes  the 
heart ;  that  is  troublesome,  this  gentle,  but  irresistible.  Much 
speaking  is  always  the  effect  of  confidence ;  and  confidence  still 
presupposes,  and  springs  from  the  persuasion  that  a  man  has  of 
his  own  worth ;  both  of  them  certainly  very  unfit  qualifications 
for  a  petitioner. 

2.  The  second  thing  that  naturally  shows  itself  in  paucity-  of 
words,  is  discretion ;  and  particularly,  that  prime  and  eminent 
part  of  it,  that  consists  in  a  care  of  offending :  which  Solomon 
assures  us,  that  in  much  speaking,  it  is  hardly  possible  for  us  to 
avoid.  In  Prov.  x.  19,  "  In  the  multitude  of  words,"  says  he, 
"there  wanteth  not  sin."  It  requiring  no  ordinary  skill* for  a 
man  to  make  his  tongue  run  by  rule  ;  and  at  the  same  time,  to 
give  it  both  its  lesson  and  its  liberty  too.  For  seldom  or  never 
is  there  much  spoken,  but  something  or  other  had  better  been 


260 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[sERM.  XVI. 


not  spoken  ;  there  being  nothing  that  the  mind  of  man  is  so  apt 
to  kindle,  and  take  distaste  at,  as  at  words.  And  therefore,  when- 
soever any  one  comes  to  prefer  a  suit  to  another,  no  doubt,  the 
fewer  of  them  the  better ;  since,  where  so  very  little  is  said,  it  is 
sure  to  be  either  candidly  accepted,  or,  which  is  next,  easily 
excused.  But,  at  the  same  time,  to  petition,  and  to  provoke  too, 
is  certainly  very  preposterous. 

3.  The  third  thing  that  brevity  of  speech  commends  itself  by 
in  all  petitionary  addresses,  is  a  peculiar  respect  to  the  person 
addressed  to :  for  whosoever  petitions  his  superior  in  such  a 
maimer  does,  by  his  very  so  doing,  confess  him  better  able  to 
understand,  than  he  himself  can  be  to  express  his  own  case.  He 
owns  him  as  a  patron  of  a  preventing  judgment  and  goodness, 
and,  upon  that  account,  able,  not  only  to  answer,  but  also  to 
anticipate  his  requests.  For,  according  to  the  most  natural 
interpretation  of  things,  this  is  to  ascribe  to  him  a  sagacity  so 
quick  and  piercing,  that  it  were  presumption  to  inform  ;  and  a 
benignity  so  great,  that  it  were  needless  to  importune  him.  And 
can  there  be  a  greater  and  more  winning  deference  to  a  superior, 
than  to  treat  him  under  such  a  character  ?  Or  can  any  thing  be 
imagined  so  naturally  fit  and  efficacious,  both  to  enforce  the 
petition,  and  to  endear  the  petitioner  ?  A  short  petition  to  a 
great  man,  is  not  only  a  suit  to  him  for  his  favour,  but  also 
a  panegyric  upon  his  parts. 

And  thus  I  have  given  you  the  three  commendatory-  qualifica- 
tions of  brevity  of  speech,  in  our  applications  to  the  great  ones 
of  the  world.  Concerning  which,  as  I  showed  before,  that  it  was 
impossible  for  us  to  form  our  addresses,  even  to  God  himself,  but 
with  some  proportion  and  resemblance  to  those  that  we  make  to 
our  fellow  mortals  in  a  condition  much  above  us;  so  it  is  cer- 
tain, that  whatsoever  the  general  judgment  and  consent  of  man- 
kind allows  to  be  expressive  and  declarative  of  our  honour  to 
those,  must  (only  with  due  allowance  of  the  difference  of  the  object) 
as  really  and  properly  declare  and  signify  that  honour  and  adora- 
tion that  is  due  from  us  to  the  great  God.  And  consequently, 
what  we  have  said  for  brevity  of  speech,  with  respect  to  the  for- 
mer, ought  equally  to  conclude  for  it  with  relation  to  him  too. 

But  to  argue  more  immediately  and  directly  to  the  point 
before  us ;  I  shall  now  produce  five  arguments,  enforcing  brevity, 
and  cashiering  all  prolixity  of  speech,  with  peculiar  reference  to 
our  addresses  to  God. 

1.  And  the  first  argument  shall  be  taken  from  this  considera- 
tion :  That  there  is  no  reason  allegeable  for  the  use  of  length  or 
prolixity  of  speech,  that  is  at  all  applicable  to  prayer.  For  who- 
soever uses  multiplicity  of  words,  or  length  of  discourse,  must  of 
necessity  do  it  for  one  of  these  three  purposes ;  either  to  inform, 
or  persuade ;  or  lastly,  to  weary  and  overcome  the  person  whom 
he  directs  his  discourse  to.     But  the  very  first  foundation  of 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


261 


what  I  had  to  say  upon  this  subject  was  laid  by  me,  in  demon- 
strating that  prayer  could  not  possibly  prevail  with  God  any  of 
these  three  ways.    Forasmuch  as  being  omniscient,  he  could  not 
be  informed  ;  and  being  void  of  passion,  or  affections,  he  could 
not  be  persuaded ;   and  lastly,  being  omnipotent  and  infinitely 
great,  he  could  not,  by  any  importunity,  be  wearied  or  overcome. 
And  if  so,  what  use  then  can  there  be  of  rhetoric,  harangue,  or 
multitude  of  words  in  prayer  ?    For,  if  they  should  be  designed 
for  information,  must  it  not  be  infinitely  sottish  and  unreason- 
able to  go  about  to  inform  him,  who  can  be  ignorant  of  nothing? 
Or  to  persuade  him,  whose  unchangeable  nature  makes  it  impos- 
sible for  him  to  be  moved  or  wrought  upon  ?    Or,  lastly,  by  long 
and  much  speaking,  to  think  to  weary  him  out,  whose  infinite 
power  all  the  strength  of  men  and  angels,  and  the  whole  world 
put  together,  is  not  able  to  encounter  or  stand  before  ?    So  that 
the  truth  is,  by  loquacity  and  prolixity  of  prayer,  a  man  does 
really  and  indeed,  whether  he  thinks  so  or  no,  rob  God  of  the 
honour  of  those  three  great  attributes,  and  neither  treats  him  as 
a  person  omniscient,  or  unchangeable,  or  omnipotent.    For,  on 
the  other  side,  all  the  usefulness  of  long  speech  in  human  con- 
verse, is  founded  only  upon  the  defects  and  imperfections  of 
human  nature.    For  he  whose  knowledge  is  at  best  but  limited, 
and  whose  intellect,  both  in  apprehending  and  judging,  proceeds 
by  a  small  diminutive  light,  cannot  but  receive  an  additional 
light  by  the  conceptions  of  another  man,  clearly  and  plainly  ex- 
pressed, and  by  such  expression  conveyed  to  his  apprehension. 
And  he  again,  whose  nature  subjects  him  to  want  and  weakness, 
and  consequently  to  hopes  and  fears,  cannot  but  be  moved  this 
way  or  that  way,  according  as  objects  suitable  to  those  passions, 
shall  be  dexterously  represented  and  set  before  his  imagination, 
by  the  arts  of  speaking ;  which  is  that  that  we  call  persuasion.  And 
lastly,  he  whose  soul  and  body  receive  their  activity  from,  and 
perform  all   their  functions   by,  the  mediation  of  the  spirits, 
which  ebb  and  flow,  consume,  and  are  renewed  again,  cannot  but 
find  himself  very  uneasy  upon  any  tedious,  verbose  application 
made  to  him :  and  that  sometimes  to  such  a  degree,  that  through 
mere  fatigue,  and  even  against  judgment  and  interest  both,  a 
man  shall  surrender  himself,  as  a  conquered  person,  to  the  over- 
bearing vehemence  of  such  solicitations.    For  when  they  ply  him 
so  fast,  and  pour  in  upon  him  so  thick,  they  cannot  but  wear  and 
waste  the  spirits,  as  unequal  to  so  pertinacious  a  charge ;  and  this 
is  properly  to  weary  a  man.    But  now  all  weariness,  we  know, 
presupposes  weakness ;   and  consequently  every  long,  importu- 
nate, wearisome  petition  is  truly  and  properly  a  force  upon  him 
that  is  pursued  with  it ;  it  is  a  following  blow  after  blow  upon 
the  mind  and  affections,  and  may,  for  the  time,  pass  for  real, 
though  short  persecution. 

This  is  the  state  and  condition  of  human  nature ;  and  prolixity 


262 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVI. 


or  importunity  of  speech  is  still  the  great  engine  to  attack  it  by, 
either  in  its  blind  or  weak  side.  And  I  think  I  may  venture  to 
affirm,  that  it  is  seldom  that  any  man  is  prevailed  upon  by  words, 
but,  upon  a  true  and  philosophical  estimate  of  the  whole  matter, 
he  is  either  deceived  or  wearied  before  he  is  so,  and  parts  with 
the  thing  desired  of  him  upon  the  very  same  terms  that  either 
a  child  parts  with  a  jewel  for  an  apple,  or  a  man  parts  with  his 
sword  when  it  is  forcibly  wrested  or  taken  from  him.  And  that 
he  who  obtains  what  he  has  been  rhetorically  or  importunately 
begging  for,  goes  away  really  a  conquerer,  and  triumphantly 
carrying  off  the  spoils  of  his  neighbour's  understanding,  or  his 
will;  baffling  the  former,  or  wearying  the  latter,  into  a  grant  of 
his  restless  petitions. 

And  now,  if  this  be  the  case,  when  any  one  comes  with  a 
tedious,  long-winded  harangue  to  God,  may  not  God  properly 
answer  him  with  those  words  in  Psalm  1.  21,  "Surely  thou 
thinkest  I  am  altogether  such  a  one  as  thyself?"  And  perhaps, 
upon  a  due  and  rational  examination  of  all  the  follies  and  inde- 
cencies that  men  are  apt  to  be  guilty  of  in  prayer,  they  will 
be  all  found  resolvabLe  into  this  one  thing,  as  the  true  and 
sole  cause  of  them ;  namely,  that  men,  when  they  pray,  take 
God  to  be  such  a  one  as  themselves ;  and  so  treat  him  accord- 
ingly :  the  malignity  and  mischief  of  which  gross  mistake  may 
reach  further  than  possibly  at  first  they  can  well  be  aware  of. 
For  if  it  be  idolatry  to  pray  to  God  the  Father,  represented 
under  the  shape  of  a  man,  can  it  be  at  all  better  to  pray  to  him 
as  represented  under  the  weakness  of  a  man  ?  Nay,  if  the  mis- 
representation of  the  object  makes  the  idolatry,  certainly  by  how 
much  the  worse  and  more  scandalous  the  misrepresentation  is,  by 
so  much  the  grosser  and  more  intolerable  must  be  the  idolatry. 
To  confirm  which,  we  may  add  this  consideration,  that  Christ 
himself,  even  now  in  his  glorified  estate  in  heaven,  wears  the 
body,  and  consequently  the  shape  of  a  man,  though  he  is  far 
from  any  of  his  infirmities  or  imperfections :  and  therefore,  no 
doubt,  to  represent  God  to  ourselves  under  these  latter,  must 
needs  be  more  absurd  and  irreligious,  than  to  represent  him 
under  the  former.  But  to  one  particular  of  the  preceding  dis- 
course some  may  reply  and  object;  that  if  God's  omniscience, 
by  rendering  it  impossible  for  him  to  be  informed,  be  a  sufficient 
reason  against  prolixity  or  length  of  prayer ;  it  will  follow,  that 
it  is  equally  a  reason  against  the  using  any  words  at  all  in  prayer, 
since  the  proper  use  of  words  is  to  inform  the  person  whom  we 
speak  to ;  and  consequently,  where  information  is  impossible, 
words  must  needs  be  useless  and  superfluous. 

To  which  I  answer,  first  by  concession,  that  if  the  sole  use  of 
words,  or  speech,  were  to  inform  the  person  whom  we  speak  to, 
the  consequence  would  be  firm  and  good,  and  equally  conclude 
against  the  use  of  any  words  at  all  in  prayer.    But  therefore, 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


263 


in  the  second  place,  I  deny  information  to  be  the  sole  and  ade- 
quate use  of  words  or  speech,  or  indeed  any  use  of  them  at  all, 
when  either  the  person  spoken  to  needs  not  to  be  informed,  and 
withal  is  known  not  to  need  it,  as  sometimes  it  falls  out  with  men  ; 
or  when  he  is  incapable  of  being  informed,  as  it  is  always  with 
God.    But  the  proper  use  of  words,  whensoever  we  speak  to 
God  in  prayer,  is  thereby  to  pay  him  honour  and  obedience. 
God  having  by  an  express  precept,  enjoined  us  the  use  of  words 
in  prayer,  commanding  us  in  Psalm  1.  15,  and  many  other  scrip- 
tures, "  to  call  upon  him :"  and  in  Luke  xi.  21,  "  when  we  pray, 
to  say,  Our  Father,"  &c.    But  no  where  has  he  commanded  us 
to  do  this  with  prolixity  or  multiplicity  of  words.    And  though 
it  must  be  confessed,  that  wTe  may  sometimes  answer  this  com- 
mand of  calling  upon  God,  and  saying,  "  Our  Father,"  &c,  by 
mental  or  inward  prayer ;  yet  since  these  words,  in  their  first  and 
most  proper  signification,  import  a  vocal  address,  there  is  no  doubt, 
but  the  direct  design  of  the  command  is  to  enjoin  this  also, 
wheresoever  there  is  ability  and  power  to  perform  it.    So  that 
we  see  here  the  necessity  of  vocal  prayer,  founded  upon  the 
authority  of  a  divine  precept ;  whereas,  for  long  prolix  prayer, 
no  such  precept  can  be  produced  ;  and  consequently,  the  divine 
omniscience  may  be  a  sufficient  reason  against  multiplicity  of 
words  in  prayer,  and  yet  conclude  nothing  simply  or  absolutely 
against  the  bare  use  of  them.    Nevertheless,  that  we  may  not 
seem  to  allege  bare  command,  unseconded  by  reason  (which  yet, 
in  the  divine  commands,  it  is  impossible  to  do),  there  is  this  great 
reason  for,  and  use  of  words  in  prayer,  without  the  least  pretence 
of  informing  the  person  whom  we  pray  to ;    and  that  is,  to 
acknowledge  and  own  those  wants  before  God,  that  we  suppli- 
cate for  a  relief  of.    It  being  very  proper  and  rational  to  own 
and  acknowledge  a  thing  even  to  him  who  knew  it  before :  for- 
asmuch as  this  is  so  far  from  offering  to  communicate  or  make 
known  to  him  the  thing  so  acknowledged,  that  it  rather  pre- 
supposes in  him  an  antecedent  knowledge  of  it,  and  comes  in 
only  as  a  subsequent  assent  and  subscription  to  the  reality  and 
truth  of  such  a  knowledge.    For  to  acknowledge  a  thing  in  the 
first  sense  of  the  word,  does  by  no  means  signify  a  design  of 
notifying  that  thing  to  another,  but  is  truly  and  properly  a  man's 
passing  sentence  upon  himself  and  his  own  condition :  there 
being  no  reason  in  the  world  for  a  man  to  expect  that  God  should 
relieve  and  supply  those  wants  that  he  himself  will  not  own  or 
take  notice  of;  any  more  than  for  a  man  to  hope  for  a  pardon  of 
those  sins  that  he  cannot  find  in  his  heart  to  confess.    And  yet, 
I  suppose,  no  man  in  his  right  senses  does  or  can  imagine,  that 
God  is  informed  or  brought  to  the  knowledge  of  those  sins  by 
any  such  confession. 

And  so  much  for  the  clearing  of  this  objection;  and,  in  the 
whole,   for   the   first   argument   produced   by  us   for  brevity, 


264 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVI. 


and  against  prolixity  of  prayer ;  namely,  That  all  the  reasons 
that  can  be  assigned  for  prolixity  of  speech  in  our  converse  with 
men  cease,  and  become  no  reasons  for  it  at  all,  when  we  are  to 
speak  or  pray  to  God. 

2.  The  second  argument  for  paucity  of  words  in  prayer,  shall 
be  taken  from  the  paucity  of  those  things  that  are  necessary  to 
be  prayed  for.  And  surely,  where  few  things  are  necessary,  few 
words  should  be  sufficient ;  for  where  the  matter  is  not  commen- 
surate to  the  words,  all  speaking  is  but  tautology ;  that  being  really 
and  truly  tautology,  where  the  same  thing  is  repeated,  though 
under  never  so  much  variety  of  expression ;  as  it  is  but  the  man 
still,  though  he  appears  every  day  or  every  hour  in  a  new  and 
different  suit  of  clothes. 

The  adequate  subject  of  our  prayers,  I  showed  at  first,  com- 
prehended in  it  things  of  necessity,  and  things  of  charity.  As  to 
the  first  of  which,  I  know  nothing  absolutely  necessary,  but 
grace  here,  and  glory  hereafter.  And  for  the  other,  we  know 
what  the  apostle  says,  1  Tim.  vi.  8,  "  Having  food  and  raiment, 
let  us  be  therewith  content."  Nature  is  satisfied  with  a  little, 
and  grace  with  less.  And  now  if  the  matter  of  our  prayers  lies 
within  so  narrow  a  compass,  why  should  the  dress  and  outside  of 
them  spread  and  diffuse  itself  into  so  wide  and  disproportioned  a 
largeness  ?  By  reason  of  which,  our  words  will  be  forced  to 
hang  loose  and  light  without  any  matter  to  support  them ;  much 
after  the  same  rate,  that  it  is  said  to  be  in  transubstantiation ; 
where  accidents  are  left  in  the  lurch  by  their  proper  subject,  that 
gives  them  the  slip,  and  so  leaves  those  poor  slender  beings  to 
uphold  and  shift  for  themselves. 

In  brevity  of  speech,  a  man  does  not  so  much  speak  words,  as 
things;  things  in  their  precise  and  naked  truth,  and  stripped  of 
their  rhetorical  mask  and  their  fallacious  gloss.  And  therefore, 
in  Athens  they  circumscribed  the  pleadings  of  their  orators  by  a 
strict  law,  cutting  off  prologues  and  epilogues,  and  commanding 
them  to  an  immediate  representation  of  the  case,  by  an  impar- 
tial and  succinct  declaration  of  mere  matter  of  fact.  And  this 
was,  indeed,  to  speak  things  fit  for  a  judge  to  hear,  because  it 
argued  the  pleader  also  a  judge  of  what  was  fit  for  him  to  speak. 

And  now,  why  should  not  this  be  both  decency  and  devotion 
too,  when  we  come  to  plead  for  our  poor  souls  before  the  great 
tribunal  of  heaven  ?  It  was  the  saying  of  Solomon,  "  A  word 
to  the  wise ;"  and  if  so,  certainly  there  can  be  no  necessity  of 
many  words  to  him  who  is  wisdom  itself.  For  can  any  man 
think,  that  God  delights  to  hear  him  make  speeches,  and  to 
show  his  parts,  as  the  word  is,  or  to  jumble  a  multitude  of  mis- 
applied scripture  sentences  together,  interlarded  with  a  frequent, 
nauseous  repetition  of  "  Ah  Lord !"  which  some  call  exercising 
their  gifts,  but  with  a  greater  exercise  of  their  hearers'  patience  ? 
Nay,  does  not  he  present  his  Maker,  not  only  with  a  more 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


265 


decent,  but  also  more  free  and  liberal  oblation,  who  tenders  him 
much  in  a  little,  and  brings  him  his  whole  heart  and  soul  wrap- 
ped up  in  three  or  four  words,  than  he  who,  with  full  mouth 
and  loud  lungs,  sends  up  whole  vollies  of  articulate  breath  to  the 
throne  of  grace  ?  For,  neither  in  the  esteem  of  God  or  man 
ought  multitude  of  words  to  pass  for  any  more.  In  the  present 
case,  no  doubt,  God  accounts  and  accepts  of  the  former,  as  infi- 
nitely a  more  valuable  offering  than  the  latter.  As  that  subject 
pays  his  prince  a  much  nobler  and  more  acceptable  tribute  who 
tenders  him  a  purse  of  gold,  than  he  who  brings  him  a  whole 
cart-load  of  farthings :  in  which  there  is  weight  without  worth, 
and  number  without  account. 

3.  The  third  argument  for  brevity,  or  contractedness  of  speech 
in  prayer,  shall  be  taken  from  the  very  nature  and  condition  of 
the  person  who  prays  ;  which  makes  it  impossible  for  him  to 
keep  up  the  same  fervour  and  attention  in  a  long  prayer,  that  he 
may  in  a  short.  For,  as  I  first  observed,  that  the  mind  of  man 
cannot,  with  the  same  force  and  vigour,  attend  to  several  ob- 
jects at  the  same  time  ;  so  neither  can  it,  with  the  same  force 
and  earnestness,  exert  itself  upon  one  and  the  same  object  for 
any  long  time:  great  intention  of  mind  spending  the  spirits  too 
fast  to  continue  its  first  freshness  and  agility-  long.  For  while 
the  soul  is  a  retainer  to  the  elements,  and  a  sojourner  in  the 
body,  it  must  be  content  to  submit  its  own  quickness  and 
spirituality  to  the  dulness  of  its  vehicle,  and  to  comply  with  the 
pace  of  its  inferior  companion.  Just  like  a  man  shut  up  in  a 
coach  ;  who,  while  he  is  so,  must  be  willing  to  go  no  faster  than 
the  motion  of  the  coach  will  carry  him.  He  who  does  all  by 
the  help  of  those  subtle,  refined  parts  of  matter,  called  spirits, 
must  not  think  to  persevere  at  the  same  pitch  of  acting  while 
those  principles  of  activity  flag.  No  man  begins  and  ends  a  long 
journey  with  the  same  pace. 

But  now,  when  prayer  has  lost  its  due  fervour  and  attention 
(which,  indeed,  are  the  very  vitals  of  it),  it  is  but  the  carcase  of 
a  prayer;  and,  consequently,  must  needs  be  loathsome  and 
offensive  to  God :  nay,  though  the  greatest  part  of  it  should  be 
enlivened  and  carried  on  with  an  actual  attention,  yet  if  that 
attention  fails  to  enliven  any  one  part  of  it,  the  whole  is  but  a 
joining  of  the  living  and  the  dead  together ;  for  which  conjunc- 
tion the  dead  is  not  at  all  the  better,  but  the  living  very  much 
the  worse.  It  is  not  length,  nor  copiousness  of  language,  that  is 
devotion,  any  more  than  bulk  and  bigness  is  valour,  or  flesh  the 
measure  of  the  spirit.  A  short  sentence  may  be  oftentimes  a 
large  and  a  mighty  prayer.  Devotion  so  managed,  being  like 
water  in  a  well,  where  you  have  fulness  in  a  little  compass; 
which  surely  is  much  nobler  than  the  same  carried  out  into 
many  petit,  creeping  rivulets,  with  length  and  shallowness 
together.     Let  him  who  pravs  bestow  all  that  strength,  fervour, 

Vol.  I — 34  Z 


266 


BR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVI. 


and  attention,  upon  shortness  and  significance,  that  would  other- 
wise run  out  and  lose  itself  in  length  and  luxuriancy  pf  speech 
to  no  purpose.  Let  not  his  tongue  outstrip  his  heart;  nor  pre- 
sume to  carry  a  message  to  the  throne  of  grace,  while  that  stays 
behind.  Let  him  not  think  to  support  so  hard  and  weighty  a 
duty  with  a  tired,  languishing,  and  bejaded  devotion:  to  avoid 
which,  let  a  man  contract  his  expression  where  he  cannot  en- 
large his  affection  ;  still  remembering,  that  nothing  can  be  more 
absurd  in  itself,  nor  more  unacceptable  to  God,  than  for  one  en- 
gaged in  the  great  work  of  prayer  to  hold  on  speaking  after  he 
has  left  off  praying,  and  to  keep  the  lips  at  work  when  the  spirit 
can  do  no  more. 

4.  The  fourth  argument  for  shortness  or  conciseness  of  speech 
in  prayer,  shall  be  drawn  from  this,  that  it  is  the  most  natural 
and  lively  way  of  expressing  the  utmost  agonies  and  outcries  of 
the  soul  to  God,  upon  a  quick,  pungent  sense,  either  of  a  press- 
ing necessity  or  an  approaching  calamity ;  which,  we  know,  are 
generally  the  chief  occasions  of  prayer,  and  the  most  effectual 
motives  to  bring  men  upon  their  knees,  in  a  vigorous  application 
of  themselves  to  this  great  duty.  A  person  ready  to  sink  under 
his  wants,  has  neither  time  nor  heart  to  rhetoricate  or  make 
flourishes.  No  man  begins  a  long  grace  when  he  is  ready  to 
starve :  such  a  one's  prayers  are  like  the  relief  he  needs,  quick 
and  sudden,  short  and  immediate :  he  is  like  a  man  in  torture 
upon  the  rack,  whose  pains  are  too  acute  to  let  his  words  be 
many,  and  whose  desires  of  deliverance  too  impatient  to  delay 
the  thing  he  begs  for,  by  the  manner  of  his  begging  it. 

It  is  a  common  saying,  "  If  a  man  does  not  know  how  to  pray, 
let  him  go  to  sea,  and  that  will  teach  him."  And  we  have  a  nota- 
ble instance  of  what  kind  of  prayers  men  are  taught  in  that 
school,  even  in  the  disciples  themselves,  when  a  storm  arose,  and 
the  sea  raged,  and  the  ship  was  ready  to  be  cast  away,  in  the 
eighth  of  Matthew.  In  which  case,  we  do  not  find  that  they  fell 
presently  to  harangue  it  about  seas  and  winds,  and  that  dismal 
face  of  things  that  must  needs  appear  all  over  the  devouring 
element  at  such  a  time :  all  which,  and  the  like,  might  no  doubt 
have  been  very  plentiful  topics  of  eloquence  to  a  man  who  should 
have  looked  upon  these  things  from  the  shore,  or  discoursed  of 
wrecks  and  tempests  safe  and  warm  in  his  parlour.  But  these 
poor  wretches,  who  were  now  entering,  as  they  thought,  into  the 
very  jaws  of  death,  struggling  with  the  last  efforts  of  nature,  upon 
the  sense  of  a  departing  life ;  and  consequently  could  neither 
speak  nor  think  any  thing  low  or  ordinary  in  such  a  condition, 
presently  rallied  up,  and  discharged  the  whole  concern  of  their 
desponding  .souls  in  that  short  prayer  of  but  three  words,  though 
much  fuller  and  more  forcible  than  one  of  three  thousand,  in  the 
25th  verse  of  the  forementioned  chapter,  "  Save  us,  Lord,  or  we 
perish."    Death  makes  short  work  when  it  comes,  and  will  teach 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRATERS. 


267 


him  who  would  prevent  it,  to  make  shorter.  For  surely  no  man 
who  thinks  himself  a  perishing,  can  be  at  leisure  to  be  eloquent; 
or  jud^e  it  either  sense  or  devotion  to  begin  a  long  prayer,  when, 
in  all  likelihood,  he  shall  conclude  his  life  before  it. 

5.  The  fifth  and  last  argument  that  I  shall  produce  for  brevity 
of  speech,  or  fewness  of  words  in  prayer,  shall  be  taken  from  the 
examples  which  we  fmd  in  scripture,  of  such  as  have  been 
remarkable  for  brevity,  and  of  such  as  have  been  noted  for 
prolixity  of  speech,  in  the  discharge  of  this  duty. 

1.  And  first  for  brevity.  To  omit  all  those  notable  examples 
which  the  Old  Testament  affords  us  of  it ;  and  to  confine  our- 
selves only  to  the  New,  in  which  we  are  undoubtedly  most  con- 
cerned. Was  not  this  way  of  praying  not  only  warranted,  but 
sanctified,  and  set  above  all  that  the  will  of  man  could  possibly 
except  against  it,  by  that  infinitely  exact  form  of  prayer,  pre- 
scribed by  the  greatest,  the  holiest,  and  the  wisest  man  that  ever 
lived,  even  Christ  himself,  the  Son  of  God,  and  Saviour  of  the 
world  ?  Was  it  not  an  instance  both  of  the  truest  devotion,  and 
the  fullest  and  most  comprehensive  reason,  that  ever  proceeded 
from  the  mouth  of  man?  And  yet  withal  the  shortest  and  most 
succinct  model  that  ever  grasped  all  the  needs  and  occasions  of 
mankind,  both  spiritual  and  temporal,  into  so  small  a  compass  3 
Doubtless,  had  our  Saviour  thought  fit  to  amplify  or  be  prolix, 
he,  u  in  whom  were  hid  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom,"  could  not 
want  matter,  nor  he  who  was  himself  "  the  Word,"  want  variety 
of  the  fittest  to  have  expressed  his  mind  by.  But  he  chose  rather 
to  contract  the  whole  concern  of  both  worlds  in  a  few  lines,  and 
to  unite  both  heaven  and  earth  in  his  prayer,  as  he  had  done 
before  in  his  person.  And  indeed  one  was  a  kind  of  copy  or 
representation  of  the  other. 

So  then  we  see  here  brevity  in  the  rule  or  pattern ;  let  us  see 
it  next  in  the  practice,  and  after  that,  in  the  success  of  prayer. 
And  fust,  we  have  the  practice,  as  well  as  the  pattern  of  it,  in 
our  Saviour  himself ;  and  that,  in  the  most  signal  passage  of  his 
whole  life,  even  his  preparation  for  his  approaching  death.  In 
which  dolorous  scene,  when  his  whole  soul  was  nothing  but  sor- 
row (that  great  moving  spring  of  invention  and  elocution),  and 
when  nature  was  put  to  its  last  and  utmost  stretch,  and  so  had 
no  refuge  or  relief  but  in  prayer ;  yet  even  then,  all  his  horror, 
agony,  and  distress  of  spirit,  delivers  itself  but  in  two  very  short 
sentences,  in  Matt.  xxyi.  39,  "  0  my  Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let 
this  cup  pass  from  me ;  nevertheless,  not  as  I  will,  but  as  thou 
wilt."  And  again,  the  second  time,  with  the  like  brevity,  and 
the  like  words:  "0  my  Father,  if  this  cup  may  not  pa<s  from 
me,  except  I  drink  it,  thy  will  be  done."  And  lastly,  the  third 
time  also,  he  used  the  same  short  form  again  :  and  yet  in  all  this, 
he  was  (as  we  may  say  without  a  metaphor)  even  praying  for 
life ;  so  far  as  the  great  business  he  was  then  about,  to  wit,  the 


268 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVI. 


redemption  of  the  world,  would  suffer  him  to  pray  for  it.  All 
which  prayers  of  our  Saviour,  and  others  of  like  brevity,  are  pro- 
perly such  as  we  call  ejaculations;  an  elegant  similitude  from  a 
dart  or  arrow,  shot  or  thrown  out;  and  such  a  one  (we  know) 
of  a  yard  long,  wTill  fly  further,  and  strike  deeper,  than  one 
of  twenty. 

And  then,  in  the  last  place,  for  the  success  of  such  brief 
prayers ;  I  shall  give  you  but  three  instances  of  this,  but  they 
shall  be  of  persons  praying  under  the  pressure  of  as  great  miseries 
as  human  nature  could  well  be  afflicted  with.  And  the  first  shall 
be  of  the  leper,  Matt.  viii.  2,  or,  as  St.  Luke  describes  him,  "a 
man  full  of  leprosy,  who  came  to  our  Saviour,  and  worshipped 
him ;"  and  as  St.  Luke  again  has  it  more  particularly,  "  fell  on  his 
face  before  him,"  which  is  the  lowest  and  most  devout  of  all  pos- 
tures of  worship,  "  saying,  Lord,  if  thou  wilt,  thou  canst  make 
me  clean."  This  was  all  his  prayer:  and  the  answer  to  it  was, 
that  he  was  immediately  cleansed.  The  next  instance  shall  be  of 
the  poor  blind  man,  in  Luke  xviii.  38,  following  our  Saviour 
with  this  earnest  prayer:  "  Jesus,  thou  Son  of  David,  have  mercy 
upon  me."  His  whole  prayer  was  no  more;  for  it  is  said  in  the 
next  verse,  that  he  wTent  on  repeating  it  again  and  again: 
"  Jesus,  thou  Son  of  David,  have  mercy  upon  me."  And  the 
answer  he  received  was,  that  his  eyes  were  opened,  and  his  sight 
restored. 

The  third  and  last  instance  shall  be  of  the  publican,  in  the 
same  chapter  of  St.  Luke  ;  praying  under  a  lively  sense  of  as 
great  a  leprosy  and  blindness  of  soul,  as  the  other  two  could  have 
of  body.  In  the  13th  verse,  "  he  smote  upon  his  breast,  saying, 
God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner."  He  spoke  no  more  ;  though  it 
is  in  the  10th  verse,  that  he  went  solemnly  and  purposely  up  to 
the  temple  to  pray:  the  issue  and  success  of  which  prayer  was, 
that  he  went  home  justified,  before  one  of  those  whom  all  the 
Jewish  church  revered  as  absolutely  the  highest  and  most  heroic 
examples  of  piety,  and  most  beloved  favourites  of  heaven,  in  the 
whole  world.  And  now,  if  the  force  and  virtue  of  these  short 
prayers  could  rise  so  high  as  to  cleanse  a  leper,  to  give  sight  to 
the  blind,  and  to  justify  a  publican;  and  if  the  worth  of  a  prayer 
may  at  all  be  measured  by  the  success  of  it,  I  suppose,  no  prayers 
whatsoever  can  do  more ;  and  I  never  yet  heard  or  read  of  any 
long  prayer  that  did  so  much.  "Which  brings  on  the  other  part 
of  this  our  fifth  and  last  argument,  which  was  to  be  drawn  from 
the  examples  of  such  as  have  been  noted  in  scripture  for  prolixity 
or  length  of  prayer.  And  of  this  there  are  only  two  mentioned, 
the  heathens  and  the  Pharisees.  The  first,  the  grand  instance  of 
idolatry ;  the  other,  of  hypocrisy.  But  Christ  forbids  us  the 
imitation  of  both ;  When  ye  pray,"  says  our  Saviour  in  the  6th 
of  Matthew,  "be  ye  not  like  the  heathens."  But  in  what?  Why, 
in  this,  "  that  they  think  they  shall  be  heard  for  their  much  speak- 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


269 


ing,"  in  the  7th  verse.  It  is  not  the  multitude  that  prevails  in 
armies,  and  much  less  in  words.  And  then  for  the  Pharisees, 
whom  our  Saviour  represents  as  the  very  vilest  of  men,  and  the 
greatest  of  cheats ;  we  have  them  amusing  the  world  with  pre- 
tences of  a  more  refined  devotion,  while  their  heart  was  that  time 
in  their  neighbour's  coffers.  For  does  not  our  Saviour  expressly 
tell  us,  in  Luke  xx.  and  the  two  last  verses,  that  the  great  tools, 
the  hooks  or  engines,  by  which  they  compassed  their  worst, 
their  wickedest,  and  most  rapacious  designs,  were  long  prayers  ? 
Prayers  made  only  for  a  show  or  colour ;  and  that  to  the  basest 
and  most  degenerous  sort  of  villany,  even  the  robbing  the  spittal, 
and  devouring  the  houses  of  poor,  helpless,  forlorn  widows.  Their 
devotion  served  all  along  but  as  an  instrument  to  their  avarice, 
as  a  factor  or  under-agent  to  their  extortion.  A  practice  which, 
duly  seen  into,  and  stripped  of  its  hypocritical  Jblinds,  could  not 
but  look  very  odiously  and  ill-favouredly ;  and  therefore,  in  come 
their  long  robes,  and  their  long  prayers  together,  and  cover  all. 
And  the  truth  is,  neither  the  length  of  one,  nor  of  the  other  is 
ever  found  so  useful,  as  when  there  is  something  more  than 
ordinary  that  would  not  be  seen.  This  was  the  gainful  godliness 
of  the  Pharisees ;  and  I  believe  upon  good  observation,  you  will 
hardly  find  any  like  the  Pharisees  for  their  long  prayers,  who  are 
not  also  extremely  like  them  for  something  else.  And  thus  hav- 
ing given  you  five  arguments  for  brevity,  and  against  prolixity  of 
prayer ;  let  us  now  make  this  our  other  great  rule,  whereby  to 
judge  of  the  prayers  of  our  church,  and  the  prayers  of  those  who 
dissent  and  divide  from  it.  And, 

First,  For  that  excellent  body  of  prayers  contained  in  our 
liturgy,  and  both  compiled  and  enjoined'  by  public  authority. 
Have  we  not  here  a  great  instance  of  brevity  and  fulness 
together,  cast  into  several  short,  significant  collects,  each  con- 
taining a  distinct,  entire,  and  well-managed  petition  ?  The  whole 
set  of  them  being  like  a  string  of  pearls,  exceeding  rich  in  con- 
junction ;  and  therefore  of  no  small  price  or  value,  even  single 
and  by  themselves.  Nothing  could  have  been  composed  with 
greater  judgment ;  every-  prayer  being  so  short,  that  it  is  impos- 
sible it  should  weary  ;  and  withal,  so  pertinent,  that  it  is  impossi- 
ble it  should  cloy  the  devotion.  And  indeed,  so  admirably  fitted 
are  they  all  to  the  common  concerns  of  a  Christian  society,  that 
when  the  rubric  enjoins  but  the  use  of  some  of  them,  our  wor- 
ship is  not  imperfect ;  and  when  we  use  them  all,  there  is  none 
of  them  superliuous. 

And  the  reason  assigned  by  some  learned  men  for  the  prefer- 
ence of  many  short  prayers,  before  a  continued  long  one,  is 
unanswerable  ;  namely,  that  by  the  former  there  is  a  more  fre- 
quently repeated  mention  made  of  the  name,  and  some  great 
attribute  of  God  as  the  encouraging  ground  of  our  praying  to 
him;  and  withal,  of  the  merits  and  mediation  of  Christ,*  as"  the 

z2 


270 


DR.   SOUTH 'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVI. 

\ 


only  thing  that  can  promise  us  success  in  what  we  pray  for ; 
every  distinct  petition  beginning  with  the  former,  and  ending 
with  the  latter:  by  thus  annexing  of  which  to  each  particular 
thing  that  we  ask  for,  we  do  manifestly  confess  and  declare,  that 
we  cannot  expect  to  obtain  any  one  thing  at  the  hands  of  God, 
but  with  a  particular  renewed  respect  to  the  merits  of  a  Me- 
diator ;  and  withal,  remind  the  congregation  of  the  same,  by 
making  it  their  part  to  renew  a  distinct  Amen  to  every  distinct 
petition. 

Add  to  this  the  excellent  contrivance  of  a  great  part  of  our 
liturgy  into  alternate  responses ;  by  which  means,  the  people 
are  put  to  bear  a  considerable  share  in  the  whole  service :  which 
makes  it  almost  impossible  for  them  to  be  only  idle  hearers,  or 
which  is  worse,  mere  lookers  on  :  as  they  are  very  often,  and 
may  be  always,  if  they  can  but  keep  their  eyes  open,  at  the  long 
tedious  prayers  of  the  nonconformists.  And  this  indeed  is  that 
which  makes  and  denominates  our  liturgy  truly  and  properly  a 
book  of  common  prayer.  For,  I  think  I  may  truly  avouch  (how 
strange  soever  it  may  seem  at  first)  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  common,  or  joint  prayer,  any  where  amongst  the  principal 
dissenters  from  the  church  of  England.  For  in  the  Romish 
communion,  the  priest  says  over  the  appointed  prayers  only  to 
himself,  and  the  rest  of  the  people  not  hearing  a  word  of  what 
he  says,  repeat  also  their  own  particular  prayers  to  themselves; 
and  when  they  have  done,  go  their  way:  not  all  at  once,  as 
neither  do  they  come  at  once,  but  scatteringly,  one  after  another, 
according  as  they  have  finished  their  devotions.  And  then  for 
the  nonconformists ;  their  prayers  being  all  extemporary,  it  is, 
as  we  have  shown  before,  hardly  possible  for  any,  and  utterly 
impossible  for  all  to  join  in  them.  For  surely,  people  cannot 
join  in  a  prayer  before  they  understand  it ;  nor  can  it  be 
imagined,  that  all  capacities  should  presently  and  immediately 
understand  what  they  hear,  when,  possibly,  the  holder-forth  him- 
self understands  not  wrhat  he  says.  From  all  which  we  may 
venture  to  conclude,  that  that  excellent  thing,  common  prayer, 
which  is  the  joint  address  of  a  whole  congregation,  with  united 
voice  as  well  as  heart,  sending  up  their  devotions  to  almighty 
God,  is  no  where  to  be  found  in  these  kingdoms,  but  in  that  best 
and  nearest  copy  of  primitive  Christian  worship,  the  divine  ser- 
vice, as  it  is  performed  according  to  the  orders  of  our  church. 

As  for  those  long  prayers  so  frequently  used  by  some  before 
their  sermons,  the  constitution  and  canons  of  our  church  are  not 
at  all  responsible  for  them ;  having  provided  us  better  things, 
and  with  great  wisdom  appointed  a  form  of  prayer  to  be  used 
by  all  before  their  sermons.  But  as  for  this  way  of  praying, 
now  generally  in  use,  as  it  was  first  taken  up  upon  a  humour 
of  novelty  and  popularity,  and  by  the  same  carried  on  till  it  had 
passed  into  a  custom,  and  so  put  the  rule  of  the  church  first  out 


AGAINST  LONG  EXTEMPORARY  PRAYERS. 


271 


of  use,  and  then  out  of  countenance  also ;  so,  if  it  be  rightly 
considered,  it  will,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  thing  itself,  be  found 
a  very  senseless  and  absurd  practice.  For  can  there  be  any 
sense  or  propriety  in  beginning  a  new,  tedious  prayer  in  the 
pulpit,  just  after  the  church  has,  for  near  an  hour  together,  with 
great  variety  of  offices,  suitable  to  all  the  needs  of  the  congre- 
gation, been  praying  for  all  that  can  possibly  be  fit  for  Christians 
to  pray  for?  Nothing  certainly  can  be  more  irrational.  For 
which  cause,  amongst  many  more,  that  old  sober  form  of  bidding 
prayer,  which,  both  against  law  and  reason,  has  been  justled  out 
of  the  church  by  this  upstart,  puritanical  encroachment,  ought, 
with  great  reason,  to  be  restored  by  authority ;  and  both  the  use 
and  users  of  it,  by  a  strict  and  solemn  reinforcement  of  the  canon 
upon  all,  without  exception,  be  rescued  from  that  unjust  scorn 
of  the  factious  and  ignorant,  which  the  tyranny  of  the  contrary 
usurping  custom  will  otherwise  expose  them  to.  For  surely,  it 
can  neither  be  decency  nor  order  for  our  clergy  to  conform  to  the 
fanatics,  as  many  in  their  prayers  before  sermon  now-a-days  do. 

And  thus  having  accounted  for  the  prayers  of  our  church, 
according  to  the  great  rule  prescribed  in  the  text,  "Let  thy 
words  be  few;"  let  us  now  according  to  the  same,  consider  also 
the  way  of  praying,  so  much  used  and  applauded  by  such  as  have 
renounced  the  communion  and  liturgy  of  our  church;  and  it  is 
but  reason  that  they  should  bring  us  something  better  in  the  room 
of  what  they  have  so  disdainfully  cast  off.  But,  on  the  contrary, 
are  not  all  their  prayers  exactly  after  the  heathenish  and  phari- 
saical  copy?  always  notable  for  those  two  things,  length  and 
tautology?  Two  whole  hours  for  one  prayer,  at  a  fast,  used  to 
be  reckoned  but  a  moderate  dose ;  and  that,  for  the  most  part, 
fraught  with  such  irreverent,  blasphemous  expressions,  that  to 
repeat  them,  would  profane  the  place  I  am  speaking  in;  and  in- 
deed they  seldom  "  carried  on  the  work  of  such  a  day,"  as  their 
phrase  was,  but  they  left  the  church  in  need  of  a  new  consecra- 
tion. Add  to  this,  the  incoherence  and  confusion,  the  endless 
repetitions,  and  the  insufferable  nonsense,  that  never  failed  to 
hold  out,  even  with  their  utmost  prolixity;  so  that  in  all  their 
long  fasts,  from  first  to  last,  from  seven  in  the  morning  to  seven 
in  the  evening,  which  was  their  measure,  the  pulpit  was  always 
the  emptiest  thing  in  the  church :  and  I  never  knew  such  a  fast 
kept  by  them,  but  their  hearers  had  cause  to  begin  a  thanks- 
giving as  soon  as  they  had  done.  And  the  truth  is,  when  I 
consider  the  matter  of  their  prayers,  so  full  of  ramble  and  in- 
consequence, and  in  every  respect  so  very  like  the  language  of  a 
dream  :  and  compare  it  with  their  carriage  of  themselves  in  prayer, 
with  their  eyes  for  the  most  part  shut,  and  their  arms  stretched 
out  in  a  yawning  posture,  a  man  that  should  hear  any  of  them 
pray,  might,  by  a  very  pardonable  error,  be  induced  to  think  that 
he  was  all  the  time  hearing  one  talking  in  his  sleep :  besides  the 


272 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVI. 


strange  virtue  which  their  prayers  had  to  procure  sleep  in  others 
too.  So  that  he  who  should  be  present  at  all  their  long  cant, 
would  show  a  greater  ability  in  watching,  than  ever  they  could 
pretend  to  in  praying,  if  he  could  forbear  sleeping,  having  so 
strong  a  provocation  to  it,  and  so  fair  an  excuse  for  it.  In  a 
word,  such  were  their  prayers,  both  for  matter  and  expression, 
that,  could  any  one  truly  and  exactly  write  them  out,  it  would 
be  the  shrewdest  and  most  effectual  way  of  writing  against 
them,  that  could  possibly  be  thought  of. 

I  should  not  have  thus  troubled  either  you  or  myself,  by 
raking  into  the  dirt  and  dunghill  of  these  men's  devotions,  upon 
the  account  of  any  thing  either  done  or  said  by  them  in  the  late 
times  of  confusion ;  for  as  they  have  the  king's,  so  I  wish  them 
God's  pardon  also,  whom  I  am  sure  they  have  offended  much 
more  than  they  have  both  kings  put  together.  But  that  which 
has  provoked  me  thus  to  rip  up  and  expose  to  you  their  nauseous 
and  ridiculous  way  of  addressing  to  God,  even  upon  the  most 
solemn  occasions,  is  that  intolerably  rude  and  unprovoked  inso- 
lence and  scurrility,  with  which  they  are  every  day  reproach- 
ing and  scoffing  at  our  liturgy,  and  the  users  of  it,  and  thereby 
alienating  the  minds  of  the  people  from  it,  to  such  a  degree,  that 
many  thousands  are  drawn  by  them  into  a  fatal  schism ;  a  schism 
that,  unrepented  of  and  continued  in,  will  as  infallibly  ruin  their 
souls,  as  theft,  whoredom,  murder,  or  any  other  of  the  most  cry- 
ing, damning  sins  whatsoever.  But  leaving  this  to  the  justice  of 
the  government,  to  which  it  belongs  to  protect  us  in  our  spiri- 
tual as  well  as  in  our  temporal  concerns,  I  shall  only  say  this, 
that  nothing  can  be  more  for  the  honour  of  our  liturgy,  than  to 
find  it  despised  only  by  those  who  have  made  themselves  remark- 
able to  the  world  for  despising  the  Lord's  Prayer  as  much. 

In  the  mean  time,  for  ourselves  of  the  church  of  England, 
who,  without  pretending  to  any  new  lights,  think  it  equally  a 
duty  and  commendation  to  be  wise,  and  to  be  devout  only  to 
sobriety,  and  who  judge  it  no  dishonour  to  God  himself  to  be 
worshipped  according  to  law  and  rule.  If  the  directions  of  Solo- 
mon, the  precept  and  example  of  our  Saviour ;  and  lastly,  the 
piety  and  experience  of  those  excellent  men  and  martyrs,  who 
first  composed,  and  afterwards  owned  our  liturgy  with  their 
dearest  blood,  may  be  looked  upon  as  safe  and  sufficient  guides 
to  us  in  our  public  worship  of  God  ;  then,  upon  the  joint  autho- 
rity of  all  these,  we  may  pronounce  our  liturgy  the  greatest 
treasure  of  rational  devotion  in  the  Christian  world.  And  I 
know  no  prayer  necessary,  that  is  not  in  the  liturgy,  but  one  : 
which  is  this :  That  God  would  vouchsafe  to  continue  the  liturgy 
itself  in  use,  honour,  and  veneration  in  this  church  for  ever. 
And  I  doubt  not,  but  all  wise,  sober,  and  good  Christians  will, 
with  equal  judgment  and  affection,  give  it  their  Amen. 

Now  to  God  the  Father,  &c. 


273 


SERMON  XVII. 

OF   THE  HEINOUS  GUILT  OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  MEN'S 

SINS. 

Romans  i.  32. 

Who  knowing  the  judgment  of  God,  that  they  which  commit  such 
things  are  worthy  of  death,  not  only  do  the  same,  but  have  plea- 
sure in  them  that  do  tJiem. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  18th  verse  to  the  end  of  the  31st 
(the  verse  immediately  going  before  the  text),  we  have  a  cata- 
logue of  the  blackest  sins  that  human  nature,  in  its  highest 
depravation,  is  capable  of  committing ;  and  this  so  perfect,  that 
there  seems  to  be  no  sin  imaginable,  but  what  may  be  reduced  to. 
and  comprised  under,  some  of  the  sins  here  specified.  In  a  word, 
we  have  an  abridgement  of  the  lives  and  practices  of  the  whole 
heathen  world ;  that  is,  of  all  the  baseness  and  villany  that  both 
the  corruption  of  nature,  and  the  instigation  of  the  devil,  could 
for  so  many  ages,  by  all  the  arts  and  opportunities,  all  the 
motives  and  incentives  of  sinning,  bring  the  sons  of  men  to, 
And  yet,  as  full  and  comprehensive  as  this  catalogue  of  sin 
seems  to  be,  it  is  but  of  sin  under  a  limitation :  a  universality 
of  sin  under  a  certain  kind  ;  that  is,  of  all  sins  of  direct  and 
personal  commission.  And  you  will  say,  is  not  this  a  sufficient 
comprehension  of  all  ?  For  is  not  a  man's  person  the  compass  of 
his  actions  ?  Or,  can  he  operate  further  than  he  does  exist  ? 
Why,  yes,  in  some  sense  he  may :  he  may  not  only  commit  such 
and  such  sins  himself,  but  also  take  pleasure  in  others  that  do 
commit  them.  Which  expression  implies  these  two  things :  first, 
that  thus  to  take  pleasure  in  other  men's  sins,  is  a  distinct  sin 
from  all  the  former;  and,  secondly,  that  it  is  much  greater 
than  the  former:  forasmuch  as  these  terms,  "  not  only  do  the 
same,  but  take  pleasure,"  &c,  import  aggravation,  as  well  as  dis- 
tinction ;  and  are  properly  an  advance  a  minore  ad  majus,  a  pro- 
gress to  a  further  degree.  And  this,  indeed,  is  the  furthest  that 
human  pravity  can  reach,  the  highest  point  of  villany  that  the 
debauched  powers  of  man's  mind  can  ascend  unto.  For  surely, 
that  sin  that  exceeds  idolatry,  monstrous  unnatural  lusts,  covet- 
ousness,  maliciousness,  envy,  murder,  deceit,  backbiting,  hatred 
of  God,  spitefulness,  pride,  disobedience  to  parents,  covenant- 
breaking,  want  of  natural  affection,  implacableness,  unmerciful- 
ness,  and  the  like :  I  say,  that  sin  that  is  a  pitch  beyond  all 
these,  must  needs  be  such  a  one  as  must  nonplus  the  devil  him- 

vol.  I.— 35. 


274  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  XVII. 

self  to  proceed  further;  it  is  the  very  extremity,  the  fulness,  and 
the  concluding  period  of  sin,  the  last  line  and  the  finishing  stroke 
of  the  devil's  image  drawn  upon  the  soul  of  man. 

Now  the  sense  of  the  words  may  be  fully  and  naturally  cast 
into  this  one  proposition,  which  shall  be  the  subject  of  the  follow- 
ing discourse,  viz. 

That  the  guilt  arising  from  a  man's  delighting  or  taking  pleasure 
in  other  men's  sins,  or  (which  is  all  one)  in  other  men  for  their  sins, 
is  greater  than  he  can  possibly  contract  by  a  commission  of  the  same 
sins  in  his  own  person. 

For  the  handling  of  which,  I  cannot  but  think  it  superfluous, 
to  offer  at  any  explication  of  what  it  is  to  take  pleasure  in  other 
men's  sins ;  it  being  impossible  for  any  man  to  be  so  far  unac- 
quainted with  the  motions  and  operations  of  his  own  mind,  as  not 
to  know  how  it  is  affected  and  disposed,  when  any  thing  pleases  or 
delights  him.  And  therefore  I  shall  state  the  prosecution  of  the 
proposition  upon  these  following  things. 

I.  I  shall  show  what  it  is  that  brings  a  man  to  such  a  disposition 
of  mind,  as  to  take  pleasure  in  other  men's  sins. 

II.  I  shall  show  the  reasons,  why  a  man's  being  disposed  to  do 
so,  comes  to  be  attended  with  such  an  extraordinary  guilt.  And, 

III.  And  lastly,  I  shall  declare  what  kind  of  persons  are  to  be 
reckoned  under  this  character.    Of  each  of  which  in  their  order. 

And  first,  for  the  first  of  these,  What  it  is  that  brings  a  man,  &c. 
In  order  to  which,  I  shall  premise  these  four  considerations. 

1.  That  every  man  naturally  has  a  distinguishing  sense  of 
turpe  et  honcstum ;  of  what  is  honest,  and  what  is  dishonest ;  of 
what  is  fit,  and  what  is  not  fit  to  be  done.  There  are  those 
practical  principles  and  rules  of  action,  treasured  up  in  that  part 
of  man's  mind,  called  by  the  schools  awrr^ais,  that,  like  the 
candle  of  the  Lord,  set  up  by  God  himself,  in  the  heart  of  every 
man,  discovers  to  him,  both  what  he  is  to  do,  and  what  to  avoid ; 
they  are  "  a  light,  lighting  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world." 

And  in  respect  of  which  principally  it  is,  that  God  is  said  not  to 
have  "left  himself  without  witness"  in  the  world ;  there  being 
something  fixed  in  the  nature  of  man,  that  will  be  sure  to  testify 
and  declare  for  hirn. 

2.  The  second  thing  to  be  considered,  is,  that  there  is  conse- 
quently upon  this  distinguishing  principle  an  inward  satisfaction, 
or  dissatisfaction,  arising  in  the  heart  of  every  man,  after  he  has 
done  a  good  or  an  evil  action ;  an  action  agreeable  to,  or  deviat- 
ing from,  this  great  rule.  And  this,  no  doubt,  proceeds  not  only 
from  the  real  unsuitableness,  that  every  thing  sinful  or  dishonest 
bears  to  the  nature  of  man,  but  also  from  a  secret,  inward,  fore- 
boding fear,  that  some  evil  or  other  will  follow  the  doing  of  that 
which  a  man's  own  conscience  disallows  him  in.  For  no  man 
naturally  is  or  can  be  cheerful  immediately  upon  the  doing  of  a 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  MEn's  SINS.  275 

wicked  action :  there  being  something  within  him  that  presently 
gives  sentence  against  him  for  it :  which,  no  question,  is  the  voice 
of  God  himself,  speaking  in  the  hearts  of  men,  whether  they 
understand  it  or  no  ;  and  by  secret  intimations  giving  the  sinner  a 
foretaste  of  that  direful  cup,  which  he  is  like  to  drink  more  deeply 
of  hereafter. 

3.  The  third  thing  to  be  considered  is,  that  this  distinguishing 
sense  of  good  and  evil,  and  this  satisfaction  and  dissatisfaction  of 
mind,  consequent  upon  a  man's  acting  suitably  or  unsuitably  to 
it,  is  a  principle  neither  presently  nor  easily  to  be  worn  out  or 
extinguished.  For  besides  that  it  is  founded  in  nature,  which 
kind  of  things  are  always  most  durable  and  lasting,  the  great 
important  end  that  God  designs  it  for — which  is  no  less  than  the 
government  of  the  noblest  part  of  the  world,  mankind — sufficiently 
Shows  the  necessity  of  its  being  rooted  deep  in  the  heart,  and 
put  beyond  the  danger  of  being  torn  up  by  an  ordinary  violence 
done  to  it. 

4.  The  fourth  and  last  thing  to  be  considered  is,  that  that 
which  weakens  and  directly  tends  to  extinguish  this  principle,  so 
far  as  it  is  capable  of  being  extinguished,  is  an  inferior,  sensitive 
principle,  which  receives  its  gratifications  from  objects  clean  con- 
trary to  the  former ;  and  which  affects  a  man,  in  the  state  of  this 
present  life,  much  more  warmly  and  vividly  than  those  which 
affect  only  his  nobler  part,  his  mind.  So  that  there  being  a  con- 
trariety between  those  things  that  conscience  inclines  to,  and 
those  that  entertain  the  senses  ;  and  since  the  more  quick  and 
affecting  pleasure  still  arises  from  these  latter,  it  follows,  that 
the  gratifications  of  these  are  more  powerful  to  command  the 
principles  of  action  than  the  other,  and  consequently  are  for  the 
most  part,  too  hard  for,  and  victorious  over  the  dictates  of  right 
reason. 

Now  from  these  four  considerations,  thus  premised,  we  naturally 
infer  these  two  things  : 

First,  That  no  man  is  quickly  or  easily  brought  to  take  a  full 
pleasure  and  delight  in  his  own  sins.  For  though  sin  offers  itself 
in  never  so  pleasing  and  alluring  a  dress  at  first,  yet  the  remorse 
and  inward  regrets  of  the  soul,  upon  the  commission  of  it,  infi- 
nitely overbalance  those  faint  and  transient  gratifications  it  affords 
the  senses.  So  that,  upon  the  whole  matter,  the  sinner,  even  at 
his  highest  pitch  of  enjoyment,  is  not  pleased  with  it  so  much, 
but  he  is  afflicted  more.  And  as  long  as  these  inward  rejolts 
and  recoilings  of  the  mind  continue,  which  they  will  certainly 
do  for  a  considerable  part  of  a  man's  life,  the  sinner  will  find 
his  accounts  of  pleasure  very  poor  and  short ;  being  so  mixed, 
and  indeed  overdone  with  the  contrary  impressions  of  trouble 
upon  his  mind,  that  it  is  but  a  bitter  sweet  at  best ;  and  the  fine 
colours  of  the  serpent  do  by  no  means  make  amends  for  the  smart 
and  poison  of  his  sting. 


276 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVII. 


Secondly,  The  other  thing  to  be  inferred  is,  that  as  no  man  is 
quickly  or  easily  brought  to  take  a  full  pleasure  or  delight  in  his 
own  sins,  so  much  less  easily  can  he  be  brought  to  take  plea- 
sure in  those  of  other  men.  The  reason  is,  because  the  chief 
motive,  as  we  have  observed,  that  induces  a  man  to  sin,  which  is 
the  gratification  of  his  sensitive  part  by  a  sinful  act,  cannot  be 
had  from  the  sins  of  another  man  ;  since  naturally  and  directly, 
they  affect  only  the  agent  that  commits  them.  For  certainly 
another  man's  intemperance  cannot  affect  my  sensuality,  any 
more  than  the  meat  and  drink  that  I  take  into  my  mouth  can 
please  his  palate.  But  of  this  more  fully  in  some  of  the  following 
particulars. 

In  the  mean  time,  it  is  evident  from  reason,  that  there  is  a  con- 
siderable difficulty  in  a  man's  arriving  to  such  a  disposition  of 
mind,  as  shall  make  him  take  pleasure  in  other  men's  sins ;  and 
yet  it  is  also  as  evident  from  the  text,  and  from  experience  too, 
that  some  men  are  brought  to  do  so.  And  therefore,  since  there 
is  no  effect,  of  what  kind  soever,  but  is  resolvable  into  some  cause, 
we  will  inquire  into  the  cause  of  this  vile  and  preternatural 
temper  of  mind,  that  should  make  a  man  please  himself  with  that 
which  can  noways  reach  or  affect  those  faculties  and  principles, 
which  nature  has  made  the  proper  seat  and  subject  of  pleasure. 
Now  the  causes,  or  at  least  some  of  the  causes,  that  debauch  and 
corrupt  the  mind  of  man  to  such  a  degree,  as  to  take  pleasure  in 
other  men's  sins,  are  these  five. 

1.  A  commission  of  the  same  sins  in  a  man's  own  person. 
This  is  imported  in  the  very  words  of  the  text ;  where  it  is  said 
of  such  persons,  that  "  they  not  only  do  the  same  things ;" 
which  must  therefore  imply  that  they  do  them.  It  is  conversa- 
tion and  acquaintance,  that  must  give  delight  in  things  and 
actions,  as  well  as  in  persons.  And  it  is  trial  that  must  begin 
the  acquaintance  :  it  being  hardly  imaginable,  that  one  should  be 
delighted  with  a  sin  at  second-hand,  till  he  has  known  it  at  the 
first.  Delight  is  the  natural  result  of  practice  and  experiment ; 
and  when  it  flows  from  any  thing  else,  so  far  it  recedes  from 
nature.  None  look  with  so  much  pleasure  upon  the  works  of 
art,  as  those  who  are  artists  themselves.  They  are  therefore 
their  delight,  because  they  were  heretofore  their  employment ; 
and  they  love  to  see  such  things,  because  they  once  loved  to  do 
them.  In  like  manner,  a  man  must  sin  himself  into  a  love  of 
other  men's  sins  ;  for  a  bare  notion  or  speculation  of  this  black 
art  will  riot  carry  him  so  far.  No  sober,  temperate  person  in  the 
world  (whatsoever  other  sins  he  may  be  inclinable  to,  and  guilty 
of)  can  look  with  any  complacency  upon  the  drunkenness  and 
sottishness  of  his  neighbours :  nor  can  any  chaste  person,  be  his 
other  failings  what  they  will,  reflect  with  any  pleasure  or  delight 
upon  the  filthy,  unclean  conversation  of  another,  though  never 
so  much  in  fashion >  and  vouched,  not  by  common  use  only,  but 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  MEN'S  SINS. 


277 


applause.  No ;  he  must  first  be  an  exercised,  thorough-paced 
practitioner  of  these  vices  himself ;  and  they  must  have  endeared 
themselves  to  him  by  those  personal  gratifications  he  had  received 
from  them  before  he  can  come  to  like  them  so  far  as  to  be 
pleased  and  enamoured  with  them,  wheresover  he  sees  them. 
It  is  possible  indeed,  that  a  sober  or  a  chaste  person,  upon  the 
stock  of  ill-will,  envy,  or  spiritual  pride,  which  is  all  the  religion 
that  some  have,  may  be  glad  to  see  the  intemperance  and  de- 
bauchery of  some  about  him :  but  it  is  impossible  that  such  per- 
sons should  take  any  delight  in  the  men  themselves  for  being 
so.  The  truth  is,  in  such  a  case,  they  do  not  properly  delight  in 
the  vice  itself,  though  they  inwardly  rejoice  (and  after  a  godly 
sort,  no  doubt)  to  see  another  guilty  of  it ;  but  they  delight  in 
the  mischief  and  disaster  which  they  know  it  will  assuredly 
bring  upon  him,  whom  they  hate,  and  wish  ill  to.  They  rejoice 
not  in  it,  as  in  a  delightful  object,  but  as  in  a  cause  and  means  of 
their  neighbour's  ruin.  So  grateful,  nay,  so  delicious  are  even 
the  horridest  villanies  committed  by  others  to  the  pharisaical  piety 
of  some  ;  who  in  the  mean  time,  can  be  wholly  unconcerned  for  the 
reproach  brought  thereby  upon  the  name  of  God  and  the  honour  of 
religion,  so  long  as  by  the  same  their  sanctified  spleen  is  gratified  in 
their  brother's  infamy  and  destruction. 

This  therefore  we  may  reckon  upon  that  scarce  any  man 
passes  to  a  liking  of  sin  in  others,  but  by  first  practising  it  himself ; 
and  consequently  may  take  it  for  a  shrewd  indication  and  sign, 
whereby  to  judge  of  the  manners  of  those  who  have  sinned  with 
too  much  art  and  caution  to  suffer  the  eye  of  the  world  to 
charge  some  sins  directly  upon  their  conversation.  For  though 
such  kind  of  men  have  lived  never  so  much  upon  the  reserve,  as 
to  their  personal  behaviour,  yet  if  they  be  observed  to  have  a 
particular  delight  in  and  fondness  for  persons  noted  for  any  sort  of 
sin,  it  is  ten  to  one  but  there  was  a  communication  in  the  sin, 
before  there  was  so  in  affection.  The  man  has,  by  this,  directed 
us  to  a  copy  of  himself ;  and  though  we  cannot  always  come  to  a 
sight  of  the  original,  yet  by  a  true  copy  we  may  know  all  that  is 
in  it. 

2.  A  second  cause  that  brings  a  man  to  take  pleasure  in  other 
men's  sins,  is  not  only  a  commission  of  those  sins  in  his  own 
person,  but  also  a  commission  of  them  against  the  full  light  and 
conviction  of  his  conscience.  For  this  also  is  expressed  in  the 
text;  where  the  persons  charged  with  this  wretched  disposition 
of  mind  are  said  to  have  been  such  "as  knew  the  judgment  of 
God,  that  they  who  committed  such  things  were  worthy  of 
death."  They  knew  that  there  was  a  righteous  and  a  searching 
law,  directly  forbidding  such  practices;  and  they  knew  that  it 
carried  with  it  the  divine  stamp,  that  it  was  the  law  of  God ; 
they  knew  also,  that  the  sanction  of  it  was  under  the  greatest 
and  dreadfullest  of  all  penalties,  death.    And  this  surely,  one 


278 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVII. 


would  think,  was  knowledge  enough  to  have  opened  both  a  man's 
eyes,  and  his  heart  too ;  his  eyes  to  see,  and  his  heart  to  consider 
the  intolerable  mischief  that  the  commission  of  the  sin  set  before 
him  must  infallibly  plunge  him  into.  Nevertheless,  the  persons 
here  mentioned  were  resolved  to  venture,  and  to  commit  the  sin, 
even  while  conscience  stood  protesting  against  it.  They  were 
•  such  as  broke  through  all  mounds  of  law,  such  as  laughed  at  the 
sword  of  vengeance,  which  divine  justice  brandished  in  their 
faces.  For  we  must  know,  that  God  has  set  a  flaming  sword  not 
only  before  paradise,  but  before  hell  itself  also ;  to  keep  men  out 
of  this,  as  well  as  out  of  the  other.  And  conscience  is  the  angel 
into  whose  hand  this  sword  is  put.  But  if  now  the  sinner  shall 
not  only  wrestle  with  this  angel,  but  throw  him  too ;  and  win  so 
complete  a  victory  over  his  conscience,  that  all  these  considera- 
tions shall  be  able  to  strike  no  terror  into  his  mind,  lay  no 
restraint  upon  his  lusts,  no  control  upon  his  appetites ;  he  is  cer- 
tainly too  strong  for  the  means  of  grace ;  and  his  heart  lies  open, 
like  a  broad  and  high  road,  for  all  the  sin  and  villany  in  the  world 
freely  to  pass  through. 

The  truth  is,  if  we  impartially  consider  the  nature  of  these 
sins  against  conscience,  we  shall  find  them  such  strange  paradoxes, 
that  a  man  must  balk  all  common  principles,  and  act  contrary  to 
the  natural  way  and  motive  of  all  human  actions,  in  the  commis- 
sion of  them.  For  that  which  naturally  moves  a  man  to  do  any 
thing,  must  be  the  apprehension  and  expectation  of  some  good 
from  the  thing  which  he  is  about  to  do  :  and  that  which  naturally 
keeps  a  man  from  doing  of  a  thing,  must  be  the  apprehension 
and  fear  of  some  mischief  likely  to  ensue  from  that  thing  or 
action,  that  he  is  ready  to  engage  in.  But  now,  for  a  man  to  do 
a  thing,  while  his  conscience,  the  best  light  that  he  has  to  judge 
by,  assures  him  that  he  shall  be  infinitely,  unsupportably  miser- 
able, if  he  does  it ;  this  is  certainly  unnatural,  and,  one  would 
imagine,  impossible. 

And  therefore,  so  far  as  one  may  judge,  while  a  man  acts 
against  his  conscience,  he  acts  by  a  principle  of  direct  infidelity, 
and  does  not  really  believe  that  those  things  that  God  has  thus 
threatened,  shall  ever  come  to  pass.  For  though  he  may  yield  a 
general  faint  assent  to  the  truth  of  those  propositions,  as  they 
stand  recorded  in  scripture  ;  yet,  for  a  thorough,  practical  belief, 
that  those  general  propositions  shall  be  particularly  made  good 
upon  his  person,  no  doubt,  for  the  time  that  he  is  sinning  against 
conscience,  such  a  belief  has  no  place  in  his  mind.  Which  being 
so,  it  is  easy  to  conceive  how  ready  and  disposed  this  must  needs 
leave  the  soul,  to  admit  of  any,  even  the  most  horrid,  unnatural 
proposals,  that  the  devil  himself  can  suggest:  for  conscience 
being  once  extinct,  and  the  Spirit  of  God  withdrawn  (which 
never  stays  with  a  man  when  conscience  has  once  left  him),  the 
soul,  like  the  first  matter  to  all  forms,  has  a  universal  propensity 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  MEn's  SINS.  279 

to  all  lewdness.  For  every  violation  of  conscience  proportion- 
ably  wears  off  something  of  its  native  tenderness,  which  tender- 
ness being  the  cause  of  that  anguish  and  remorse  that  it  feels 
upon  the  commission  of  sin ;  it  follows,  that  when,  by  degrees, 
it  comes  to  have  worn  off  all  of  this  tenderness,  the  sinner  will  find 
no  trouble  of  mind  upon  his  doing  the  very  wickedest  and  worst 
of  actions  ;  and  consequently,  that  this  is  the  most  direct  and 
effectual  introduction  to  all  sorts  and  degrees  of  sin. 

For  which  reason  it  was,  that  I  alleged  sinning  against  con- 
science for  one  of  the  causes  of  this  vile  temper  and  habit  of 
mind,  which  we  are  now  discoursing  of.  Not  that  it  has  any 
special  productive  efficiency  of  this  particular  sort  of  sinning, 
more  than  of  any  other,  but  that  it  is  a  general  cause  of  this,  as 
of  all  other  great  vices  ;  and  that  it  is  impossible  but  a  man 
must  have  first  passed  this  notable  stage,  and  got  his  conscience 
thoroughly  debauched  and  hardened,  before  he  can  arrive  to  the 
height  of  sin,  which  I  account  the  delighting  in  other  men's  sins 
to  be. 

3.  A  third  cause  of  this  villanous  disposition  of  mind,  besides  a 
man's  personal  commission  of  such  and  such  sins,  and  his  com- 
mission of  them  against  conscience,  must  be  also  his  continuance 
in  them.  For  God  forbid,  that  every  single  commission  of  a  sin, 
though  great  for  its  kind,  and  withal  acted  against  conscience  for 
its  aggravation,  should  so  far  deprave  the  soul,  and  bring  it  to 
such  a  reprobate  sense  and  condition,  as  to  take  pleasure  in  other 
men's  sins.  For  we  know  what  a  foul  sin  David  committed, 
and  what  a  crime  St.  Peter  himself  fell  into ;  both  of  them,  no 
doubt,  fully  and  clearly  against  the  dictates  of  their  conscience ; 
yet  we  do  not  find,  that  either  of  them  was  thereby  brought  to 
such  an  impious  frame  of  heart,  as  to  delight  in  their  own  sins, 
and  much  less  in  other  men's.  And  therefore,  it  is  not  every 
sinful  violation  of  conscience  that  can  quench  the  Spirit  to  such 
a  degree  as  we  have  been  speaking  of ;  but  it  must  be  a  long,  in- 
veterate course  and  custom  of  sinning  after  this  manner,  that  at 
length  produces  and  ends  in  such  a  cursed  effect.  For  this  is  so 
great  a  masterpiece  in  sin,  that  no  man  begins  with  it :  he 
must  have  passed  his  tyrocinium,  or  novitiate,  in  sinning,  before 
he  can  come  to  this,  be  he  never  so  quick  a  proficient.  No 
man  can  mount  so  fast  as  to  set  his  foot  upon  the  highest 
step  of  the  ladder  at  first.  Before  a  man  can  come  to  be  pleased 
with  sin,  because  he  sees  his  neighbour  commit  it,  he  must 
have  had  such  a  long  acquaintance  with  it  himself,  as  to 
create  a  kind  of  intimacy  or  friendship  between  him  and  that ; 
and  then  we  know,  a  man  is  naturally  glad  to  see  his  old 
friend,  not  only  at  his  own  house,  but  wheresoever  he  meets  him. 
It  is  generally  the  property  of  an  old  sinner,  to  find  a  delight  in 
reviewing  his  own  villanies  in  the  practice  of  other  men  ;  to  see 
his  sin  and  himself,  as  it  were,  in  reversion ;  and  to  find  a  greater 


280 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVII. 


satisfaction  in  beholding  him  who  succeeds  him  in  his  vice,  than 
him  who  is  to  succeed  him  in  his  estate.  In  the  matter  of  sin, 
age  makes  a  greater  change  upon  the  soul,  than  it  does  or  can 
upon  the  body.  And  as  in  this,  if  we  compare  the  picture  of  a 
man,  drawn  at  the  years  of  seventeen  or  eighteen,  with  a  picture 
of  the  same  person  at  threescore  and  ten,  hardly  the  least  trace 
or  similitude  of  one  face  can  be  found  in  the  other.  So  for  the 
soul,  the  difference  of  the  dispositions  and  qualities  of  the  inner 
man  will  be  found  much  greater.  Compare  the  harmlessness, 
the  credulity,  the  tenderness,  the  modesty,  and  the  ingenuous 
pliableness  to  virtuous  counsels,  which  is  in  youth,  as  it  comes 
fresh  and  untainted  out  of  the  hands  of  nature,  with  the  mis- 
chievousness,  the  slyness,  the  craft,  the  impudence,  the  falsehood, 
and  the  confirmed  obstinancy  in  most  sorts  of  sin,  that  is  to  be 
found  in  an  aged,  long-practised  sinner,  and  you  will  confess  the 
complexion  and  hue  of  his  soul  to  be  altered  more  than  that  of 
his  face.  Age  has  given  him  another  body,  and  custom  another 
mind.  All  those  seeds  of  virtue  and  good  morality,  that  were 
the  natural  endowments  of  our  first  years,  are  lost,  and  dead  for 
ever.  And  in  respect  of  the  native  innocence  of  childhood,  no 
man,  through  old  age,  becomes  twice  a  child.  The  vices  of  old 
age  have  in  them  the  stiffness  of  it  too.  And  as  it  is  the  unfittest 
time  to  learn  in,  so  the  unfitness  of  it  to  unlearn  will  be  found 
much  greater. 

Which  considerations,  joined  wTith  that  of  its  imbecility,  make  it 
the  proper  season  for  a  superannuated  sinner  to  enjoy  the  delights 
of  sin  in  the  rebound  ;  and  to  supply  the  impotence  of  practice 
by  the  airy,  fantastic  pleasure  of  memory  and  reflection.  For 
all  that  can  be  allowed  him  now,  is  to  refresh  his  decrepit  effete 
sensuality  with  the  transcript  and  history  of  his  former  life, 
recognised,  and  read  over  by  him,  in  the  vicious  rants  of  the 
vigorous,  youthful  debauchees  of  the  present  time,  whom  (with 
an  odd  kind  of  passion,  mixed  with  pleasure  and  envy  too)  he 
sees  flourishing  in  all  the  bravery  and  prime  of  their  age  and 
vice.  An  old  wrestler  loves  to  look  on,  and  to  be  near  the  lists, 
though  feebleness  will  not  let  him  offer  at  the  prize.  An  old 
huntsman  finds  a  music  in  the  noise  of  hounds,  though  he  cannot 
follow  the  chase.  An  old  drunkard  loves  a  tavern,  though  he 
cannot  go  to  it,  but  as  he  is  supported,  and  led  by  another,  just 
as  some  are  observed  to  come  from  thence.  And  an  old  wanton 
will  be  doating  upon  women,  when  he  can  scarce  see  them  with- 
out spectacles.  And  to  show  the  true  love  and  faithful  allegiance 
that  the  old  servants  and  subjects  of  vice  ever  after  bear  to  it, 
nothing  is  more  usual  and  frequent,  than  to  hear,  that  such  as 
have  been  strumpets  in  their  youth,  turn  procurers  in  their  age. 
Their  great  concern  is,  that  the  vice  may  still  go  on. 

4.  A  fourth  cause  of  men's  taking  pleasure  in  the  sins  of 
others,  is,  from  that  meanness  and  poor-spiritedness  that  na- 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  MEN'S  SINS. 


281 


turally  and  inseparably  accompanies  all  guilt.  Whosoever  is 
conscious  to  himself  of  sin,  feels  in  himself,  whether  he  will  own 
it  or  not,  a  proportionable  shame,  and  a  secret  depression  of 
spirit  thereupon.  And  this  is  so  irkrome  and  uneasy  to  man's 
mind,  that  he  is  restless  to  relieve  and  rid  himself  from  it:  for 
which  he  finds  no  way  so  effectual,  as  to  get  company  in  the 
same  sin.  For  company,  in  any  action,  gives  both  credit  to  that, 
and  countenance  to  the  agent;  and  so  much  as  the  sinner  gets 
of  this,  so  much  he  casts  off  of  shame.  Singularity  in  sin  puts 
it  out  of  fashion ;  since  to  be  alone  in  any  practice,  seems  to 
make  the  judgment  of  the  world  against  it ;  but  the  concurrence 
of  others  is  a  tacit  approbation  of  that  in  which  they  concur. 
Solitude  is  a  kind  of  nakedness,  and  the  result  of  that,  we  know, 
is  shame.  It  is  company  only  that  can  bear  a  man  out  in  an  ill 
thing ;  and  he  who  is  to  encounter  and  fight  the  law,  will  be 
sure  to  need  a  second.  No  wonder,  therefore,  if  some  take  de- 
light in  the  immoralities  and  baseness  of  others  ;  for  nothing  can 
support  their  minds,  drooping,  and  sneaking,  and  inwardly  re- 
proaching them,  from  a  sense  of  their  own  guilt,  but  to  see  others 
as  bad  as  themselves. 

To  be  vicious  amongst  the  virtuous  is  a  double  disgrace  and 
misery ;  but  where  the  whole  company  is  vicious  and  debauched, 
they  presently  like,  or  at  least  easily  pardon  one  another.  And 
as  it  is  observed  by  some,  that  there  is  none  so  homely  but  loves 
a  looking-glass  ;  so  it  is  certain,  that  there  is  no  man  so  vicious  but 
delights  to  see  the  image  of  his  vice  reflected  upon  him  from  one 
who  exceeds,  or  at  least  equals  him  in  the  same. 

Sin  in  itself  is  not  only  shameful,  but  also  weak ;  and  it  seeks 
a  remedy  for  both  in  society ;  for  it  is  this  that  must  give  it 
both  colour  and  support.  But  on  the  contrary,  how  great,  and,  as 
I  may  so  speak,  how  self-sufficient  a  thing  is  virtue !  It  needs 
no  credit  from  abroad,  no  countenance  from  the  multitude. 
Were  there  but  one  virtuous  man  in  the  world,  he  would  hold 
up  his  head  with  confidence  and  honour.  He  would  shame  the 
world,  and  not  the  world  him.  For,  according  to  that  excellent 
and  great  saying,  Pro  v.  xiv.  14,  "  A  good  man  shall  be  satisfied 
from  himself."  He  needs  look  no  further.  But  if  he  desires  to  see 
the  same  virtue  propagated  and  diffused  to  those  about  him,  it 
is  for  their  sakes,  not  his  own.  It  is  his  charity  that  wishes,  and 
not  his  necessity  that  requires  it.  For  solitude  and  singularity  can 
neither  daunt  nor  disgrace  him,  unless  we  could  suppose  it  a  dis- 
grace for  a  man  to  be  singularly  good. 

But  a  vicious  person,  like  the  basest  sort  of  beasts,  never 
enjoys  himself  but  in  the  herd.  Company,  he  thinks,  lessens  the 
shame  of  vice,  by  sharing  it ;  and  abates  the  torrent  of  a  com- 
mon odium  by  deriving  it  into  many  channels  ;  and,  therefore,  if 
he  cannot  wholly  avoid  the  eye  of  the  observer,  he  hopes  to  dis- 
tract it  at  least  by  a  multiplicity  of  the  object.    These,  I  confess, 

Vol.  I. — 36  2a2 


282  DR.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  xvii. 

are  poor  shifts  and  miserable  shelters  for  a  sick  and  a  self-up- 
braiding conscience  to  fly  to  ;  and  yet  they  are  some  of  the  best 
that  the  debauchee  has  to  cheer  up  his  spirits  with  in  this  world. 
For  if,  after  all,  he  must  needs  be  seen  and  taken  notice  of,  with  all 
his  filth  and  noisomeness  about  him,  he  promises  himself  however, 
that  it  will  be  some  allay  to  his  reproach,  to  be  but  one  of  many,  to 
march  in  a  troop,  and  by  a  preposterous  kind  of  ambition  to  be  seen 
in  bad  company. 

5.  The  fifth  and  last  cause  that  I  shall  mention,  inducing  men 
to  take  pleasure  in  the  sins  of  others,  is  a  certain,  peculiar,  unac- 
countable malignity,  that  is  in  some  natures  and  dispositions.  I 
know  no  other  name  or  word  to  express  it  by.  But  the  thing 
itself  is  frequently  seen  in  the  temporal  concerns  of  this  world. 
For  are  there  not  some  who  find  an  inward  secret  rejoicing  in 
themselves,  when  they  see  or  hear  of  the  loss  or  calamity  of  their 
neighbour,  though  no  imaginable  interest  or  advantage  of  their  own 
is  or  can  be  served  thereby?  But  it  seems  there  is  a  base, 
wolfish  principle  within,  that  is  fed  and  gratified  with  another's 
misery ;  and  no  other  account  or  reason  in  the  world  can  be  given 
of  its  being  so,  but  that  it  is  the  nature  of  the  beast  to  delight  in  such 
things. 

And  as  this  occurs  frequently  in  temporals,  so  there  is  no 
doubt,  but  that  with  some  few  persons  it  acts  the  same  way  also 
in  spirituals.  I  say,  with  some  few  persons;  for,  thanks  be  to 
God,  the  common,  known  corruption  of  human  nature,  upon  the 
bare  stock  of  its  original  depravation,  does  not  usually  proceed 
so  far.  Such  a  one,  for  instance,  was  that  wretch,  who  made  a 
poor  captive  renounce  his  religion,  in  order  to  the  saving  of  his 
life  ;  and  when  he  had  so  done,  presently  ran  him  through,  glory- 
ing that  he  had  thereby  destroyed  his  enemy,  both  body  and  soul. 
But  more  remarkably  such  was  that  monster  of  diabolical  base- 
ness here  in  England,  who  some  years  since,  in  the  reign  of  king 
Charles  I.,  suffered  death  for  crimes  scarce  ever  heard  of  before; 
having  frequently  boasted,  that  as  several  men  had  their  several 
pleasures  and  recreations,  so  his  peculiar  pleasure  and  recreation 
was  to  destroy  souls,  and  accordingly  to  put  men  upon  such  prac- 
tices as  he  knew  would  assuredly  do  it.  But  above  all,  the  late 
saying  of  some  of  the  dissenting  brotherhood  ought  to  be  pro- 
claimed and  celebrated  to  their  eternal  honour ;  who,  while  there 
was  another  new  oath  preparing,  which  they  both  supposed  and 
hoped  most  of  the  clergy  would  not  take,  in  a  most  insulting 
manner  gave  out  thereupon,  That  they  were  resolved  either  to 
have  our  livings,  or  to  damn  our  souls.  An  expression  so  fraught 
with  all  the  spite  and  poison  which  the  devil  himself  could  infuse 
into  words,  that  it  ought  to  remain  as  a  monument  of  the  humanity, 
charity,  and  Christianity  of  this  sort  of  men  for  ever. 

Now  such  a  temper  or  principle  as  these  and  the  like  passages 
do  import,  I  call  a  peculiar  malignity  of  nature ;  since  it  is 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  Men's  SINS.  283 

evident,  that  neither  the  inveterate  love  of  vice,  nor  yet  the  long 
practice  of  it,  and  that  even  against  the  reluctancies  and  light  of 
conscience,  can  of  itself  have  this  devilish  effect  upon  the  mind, 
but  as  it  falls  in  with  such  a  villanous  preternatural  disposition  as 
I  have  mentioned.  For  to  instance  in  the  particular  case  of 
parents  and  children,  let  a  father  be  never  so  vicious,  yet, 
generally  speaking,  he  would  not  have  his  child  so.  Nay,  it  is 
certain,  that  some,  who  have  been  as  corrupt  in  their  morals  as 
vice  could  make  them,  have  yet  been  infinitely  solicitous  to  have 
their  children  soberly,  virtuously,  and  piously  brought  up  :  so 
that,  although  they  have  "  begot  sons  after  their  own  likeness," 
yet  they  are  not  willing  to  breed  them  so  too. 

Which,  by  the  way,  is  the  most  pregnant  demonstration  in  the 
world,  of  that  self-condemning  sentence,  that  is  perpetually 
sounding  in  every  great  sinner's  breast ;  and  of  that  inward  grat- 
ing dislike  of  the  very  thing  he  practises,  that  he  should  abhor  to 
see  the  same  in  any  one,  whose  good  he  nearly  tenders,  and 
whose  person  he  wishes  well  to.  But  if  now  on  the  other  side, 
we  should  chance  to  find  a  father  corrupting  his  son,  or  a  mother 
debauching  her  daughter,  as  God  knows  such  monsters  have  been 
seen  within  the  four  seas,  we  must  not  charge  this  barely  upon  a 
high  predominance  of  vice  in  these  persons,  but  much  more  upon 
a  peculiar  anomaly  and  baseness  of  nature :  if  the  name  of  nature 
may  be  allowed  to  that  which  seems  to  be  an  utter  cashiering  of 
it ;  a  deviation  from,  and  a  contradiction  to,  the  common  princi- 
ples of  humanity.  For  this  is  such  a  disposition  as  strips  the 
father  of  the  man,  as  makes  him  sacrifice  his  children  to  Moloch ; 
and  as  much  outdo  the  cruelty  of  a  cannibal  or  a  Saturn,  as  it  is 
more  barbarous  and  inhuman  to  damn  a  child  than  to  devour  him. 

We  sometimes  read  and  hear  of  monstrous  births,  but  we  may 
often  see  a  greater  monstrosity  in  educations :  thus,  when  a  father 
has  begot  a  man,  he  trains  him  up  into  a  beast,  making  even 
his  own  house  a  stew,  a  bordel,  and  a  school  of  lewdness,  to  instil 
the  rudiments  of  vice  into  the  unwary,  flexible  years  of  his  poor 
children,  poisoning  their  tender  minds  with  the  irresistible  au- 
thentic venom  of  his  base  example ;  so  that  all  the  instruction 
they  find  within  their  father's  walls,  shall  be  only  to  be  disci- 
plined to  an  earlier  practice  of  sin,  to  be  catechized  into  all  the 
mysteries  of  iniquity,  and  at  length,  confirmed  in  a  mature,  grown 
up,  incorrigible  state  of  debauchery.  And  this  some  parents  call 
a  teaching  their  children  to  know  the  world,  and  to  study  men  : 
thus  leading  them,  as  it  were,  by  the  hand,  through  all  the 
forms  and  classes,  all  the  varieties  and  modes  of  villany,  till  at 
length  they  make  them  ten  times  more  the  children  of  the  devil, 
than  of  themselves.  Now,  I  say,  if  the  unparalleled  wickedness 
of  the  age  should  at  any  time  cast  us  upon  such  blemishes  of 
mankind  as  these,  who  while  they  thus  treat  their  children, 
should  abuse  and  usurp  the  name  of  parents,  by  assuming  it  to 


284 


DR.    SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVII. 


themselves ;  let  us  not  call  them  by  the  low,  diminutive  term  or 
title  of  sinful,  wicked,  or  ungodly  men  ;  but  let  us  look  upon 
them  as  so  many  prodigious  exceptions  from  our  common  nature, 
as  so  many  portentous  animals,  like  the  strange  unnatural  produc- 
tions of  Africa,  and  fit  to  be  publicly  shown,  were  they  not  unfit 
to  be  seen.  For  certainly,  where  a  child  finds  his  own  parents  his 
perverters,  he  cannot  be  so  properly  said  to  be  born,  as  to  be 
damned  in  the  world  ;  and  better  were  it  for  him  by  far  to  have 
been  unborn  and  unbegot,  than  to  come  to  ask  blessing  of  those 
whose  conversation  breathes  nothing  but  contagion  and  a  curse. 
So  impossible,  and  so  much  a  paradox  is  it,  for  any  parent  to  impart 
to  his  child  his  blessing  and  his  vice  too. 

And  thus  I  have  despatched  the  first  general  thing  proposed  for 
the  handling  of  the  words,  and  shown  in  five  several  particulars, 
what  it  is  that  brings  a  man  to  such  a  disposition  of  mind,  as  to  take 
pleasure  in  other  men's  sins.    I  proceed  now  to  the 

Second,  which  is,  to  show  the  reasons,  why  a  man's  being 
disposed  to  do  so,  comes  to  be  attended  with  such  an  extraordinary 
guilt.  And  the  first  shall  be  taken  from  this,  that  naturally 
there  is  no  motive  to  induce  or  tempt  a  man  to  this  way  of 
sinning.  And  this  is  a  most  certain  truth,  that  the  lesser  the 
temptation  is,  the  greater  is  the  sin.  For  in  every  sin,  by  how- 
much  the  more  free  the  will  is  in  its  choice,  by  so  much  is  the 
act  the  more  sinful.  And  where  there  is  nothing  to  importune, 
urge,  or  provoke  it  to  act,  there  is  so  much  a  higher  and  perfecter 
degree  of  freedom  about  that  act.  For  albeit,  the  will  is  not 
capable  of  being  compelled  to  any  of  its  actings,  yet  it  is  capable 
of  being  made  to  act  with  more  or  less  difficulty,  according  to  the 
different  impressions  it  receives  from  motives  or  objects.  If  the 
object  be  extremely  pleasing,  and  apt  to  gratify  it ;  there,  though 
the  will  has  still  a  power  of  refusing  it,  yet  it  is  not  without  some 
difficulty.  Upon  which  account  it  is,  that  men  are  so  strongly 
carried  out  to,  and  so  hardly  taken  off  from  the  practice  of  vice  ; 
namely,  because  the  sensual  pleasure  arising  from  it  is  still  im- 
portuning and  drawing  them  to  it. 

But  now,  from  whence  springs  this  pleasure  ?  Is  it  not  from 
the  gratification  of  some  desire  founded  in  nature  ?  An  irregular 
gratification  it  is  indeed  very  often :  yet  still  the  foundation  of  it 
is,  and  must  be,  something  natural :  so  that  the  sum  of  all  is  this, 
that  the  naturalness  of  a  desire  is  the  cause  that  the  satisfaction 
of  it  is  pleasure,  and  pleasure  importunes  the  will,  and  that  which 
importunes  the  will,  puts  a  difficulty  in  the  will's  refusing  or 
forbearing  it.  Thus  drunkenness  is  an  irregular  satisfaction  of 
the  appetite  of  thirst ;  uncleanness  an  unlawful  gratification  of 
the  appetite  of  procreation ;  and  covetousness  a  boundless,  un- 
reasonable pursuit  of  the  principle  of  self-preservation.  So  that 
all  these  are  founded  in  some  natural  desire,  and  are  therefore 
pleasurable,  and  upon  that  account  tempt,  solicit,  and  entice  the 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  Men's  SINS. 


285 


will.  In  a  word,  there  is  hardly  any  one  vice  or  sin  of  direct  and 
personal  commission,  but  what  is  the  irregularity  and  abuse  of  one 
of  those  two  grand  natural  principles  ;  namely,  either  that  which 
inclines  a  man  to  preserve  himself,  or  that  which  inclines  him  to 
please  himself. 

But  now,  what  principle,  faculty  or  desire,  by  which  nature 
projects  either  its  own  pleasure  or  preservation,  is  or  can  be 
gratified  by  another  man's  personal  pursuit  of  his  own  vice  ?  It 
is  evident  that  all  the  pleasure  that  naturally  can  be  received 
from  a  vicious  action,  can  immediately  and  personally  affect  none 
but  him  who  does  it ;  for  it  is  an  application  of  the  pleasing 
object  only  to  his  own  sense  ;  and  no  man  feels  by  another  man's 
senses.  And  therefore  the  delight  that  a  man  takes  from  another's 
sin,  can  be  nothing  else  but  a  fantastical,  preternatural  com- 
placency arising  from  that  which  he  has  really  no  sense  or  feeling 
of.  It  is  properly  a  love  of  vice,  as  such,  a  delighting  in  sin  for 
its  own  sake  ;  and  is  a  direct  imitation,  or  rather,  an  exemplifica- 
tion of  the  malice  of  the  devil,  who  delights  in  seeing  those  sins 
committed,  which  the  very  condition  of  his  nature  renders  him 
incapable  of  committing  himself.  For  the  devil  can  neither  drink, 
nor  whore,  nor  play  the  epicure,  though  he  enjoys  the  pleasures 
of  all  these  at  a  second  hand,  and  by  malicious  approbation. 
"If  a  man  plays  the  thief,'  says  Solomon,  "  and  steals  to  satisfy 
his  hunger,"  Prov.  vi.  30,  though  it  cannot  wholly  excuse  the 
fact,  yet  it  sometimes  extenuates  the  guilt.  And  we  know,  there 
are  some  corrupt  affections  in  the  soul  of  man,  that  urge  and  push 
him  on  to  their  satisfaction,  with  such  an  impetuous  fury,  that 
when  we  see  a  man  overborne  and  run  down  by  them,  considering 
the  frailty  of  human  nature,  we  cannot  but  pity  the  person,  while 
we  abhor  the  crime.  It  being  like  one  ready  to  drink  poison,  rather 
than  to  die  with  thirst. 

But  when  a  man  shall,  with  a  sober,  sedate,  diabolical  rancour, 
look  upon  and  enjoy  himself  in  the  sight  of  his  neighbour's  sin 
and  shame,  and  secretly  hug  himself  upon  the  ruins  of  his  brother's 
virtue,  and  the  dishonours  of  his  reason,  can  he  plead  the  instiga- 
tion of  any  appetite  in  nature  inclining  him  to  this  ;  and  that  would 
otherwise  render  him  uneasy  to  himself,  should  he  not  thus  triumph 
in  another's  folly  and  confusion  ?  No,  certainly,  this  cannot  be  so 
much  as  pretended.  For  he  may  as  well  carry  his  eyes  in  another 
man's  head,  and  run  races  with  another  man's  feet,  as  directly  and 
naturally  taste  the  pleasures  that  spring  from  the  gratification  of 
another  man's  appetites. 

Nor  can  that  person,  whosoever  he  is,  who  accounts  it  his 
recreation  and  diversion  to  see  one  man  wallowing  in  his  filthy 
revels,  and  another  made  infamous  and  noisome  by  his  sensuality, 
be  so  impudent  as  to  allege  for  a  reason  of  his  so  doing,  that 
either  all  the  enormous  draughts  of  the  one,  do  or  can  leave  the 
least  relish  upon  the  tip  of  his  tongue ;  or,  that  all  the  fornica- 


286 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVII. 


tions  and  whoredoms  of  the  other,  do  or  can  quench  or  cool  the 
boilings  of  his  own  lust.  No,  this  is  impossible.  And  if  so, 
what  can  we  then  assign  for  the  cause  of  this  monstrous  dispo- 
sition ?  Why,  all  that  can  be  said  in  this  case  is,  that  nature 
proceeds  by  quite  another  method  ;  having  given  men  such  and 
such  appetites,  and  allotted  to  each  of  them  their  respective  plea- 
sures ;  the  appetite  and  the  pleasure  still  cohabiting  in  the  same 
subject :  but  the  devil  and  long  custom  of  sinning  have  super- 
induced upon  the  soul  new,  unnatural,  and  absurd  desires ;  de- 
sires that  have  no  real  object ;  desires  that  relish  things  not  at 
all  desirable ;  but,  like  the  sickness  and  distemper  of  the  soul, 
feeding  only  upon  filth  and  corruption,  fire  and  brimstone,  and 
giving  a  man  the  devil's  nature  and  the  devil's  delight :  who  has 
no  other  joy  or  happiness,  but  to  dishonour  his  Maker,  and  to 
destroy  his  fellow  creature  ;  to  corrupt  him  here,  and  to  torment 
him  hereafter.  In  fine,  there  is  as  much  difference  between  the 
pleasure  a  man  takes  in  his  own  sins,  and  that  which  he  takes  in 
other  men's,  as  there  is  between  the  wickedness  of  a  man  and  the 
wickedness  of  a  devil. 

2.  A  second  reason  why  a  man's  taking  pleasure  in  the  sins 
of  others,  comes  to  be  attended  with  such  an  extraordinary  guilt, 
is,  from  the  boundless,  unlimited  nature  of  this  way  of  sinning. 
For  by  this  a  man  contracts  a  kind  of  a  universal  guilt,  and,  as 
it  were,  sins  over  the  sins  of  all  other  men ;  so  that  while  the  act 
is  theirs,  the  guilt  of  it  is  equally  his.  Consider  any  man  as 
to  his  personal  powrers  and  opportunities  of  sinning,  and  com- 
paratively they  are  not  great ;  for  at  greatest,  they  must  still  be 
limited  by  the  measure  of  a  man's  acting,  and  the  term  of  his  dura- 
tion. And  a  man's  active  powers  are  but  weak,  and  his  continu- 
ance in  the  world  but  short.  So  that  nature  is  not  sufficient  to  keep 
pace  with  his  corruptions,  by  answering  desire  with  proportionable 
practice. 

For  to  instance  in  those  two  grand  extravagancies  of  lust  and 
drunkenness.  Surely  no  man  is  of  so  general  and  diffusive  a 
lust,  as  to  prosecute  his  amours  all  the  world  over ;  and  let  it  burn 
never  so  outrageously  for  the  present,  yet  age  will  in  time  chill 
those  heats ;  and  the  impure  flame  will  either  die  of  itself,  or  con- 
sume the  body  that  harbours  it.  And  so  for  intemperance  in  drink- 
ing ;  no  man  can  be  so  much  a  swine,  as  to  be  always  pouring  in, 
but  in  the  compass  of  some  years  he  will  drown  his  health  and 
his  strength  in  his  own  belly ;  and  after  all  his  drunken  trophies, 
at  length  drink  down  himself  too  ;  and  that  certainly  will  and  must 
put  an  end  to  the  debauch. 

But  now,  for  the  way  of  sinning  which  we  have  been  speaking 
of,  it  is  neither  confined  by  place  nor  weakened  by  age  ;  but  the 
bedrid,  the  gouty,  and  the  lethargic,  may  upon  this  account, 
equal  the  activity  of  the  strongest  and  most  vegete  sinner. 
Such  a  one  may  take  his  brother  by  the  throat,  and  act  the 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  Men's  SINS.  287 

murderer,  even  while,  he  can  neither  stir  a  hand  or  foot ;  and  he 
may  invade  his  neighbours  bed,  while  weakness  has  tied  him 
down  to  his  own.  He  may  sin  over  all  the  adulteries  and  de- 
baucheries, all  the  frauds  and  oppressions  of  the  whole  neighbour- 
hood, and,  as  I  may  so  speak,  he  may  break  every  command  of 
God's  law  by  proxy,  and  it  were  well  for  him  if  he  could  be 
damned  by  proxy  too.  A  man,  by  delight  and  fancy,  may  grasp 
in  the  sins  of  countries  and  ages,  and  by  an  inward  liking  of 
them  communicate  in  their  guilt.  He  may  take  a  range  all  the 
world  over,  and  draw  in  all  that  wide  circumference  of  sin  and 
vice,  and  centre  it  in  his  own  breast.  For,  whatsoever  sin  a 
man  extremely  loves,  and  would  commit  if  he  had  opportunity, 
and,  in  the  mean  time,  pleases  himself  with  the  speculation  of 
the  same,  whether  ever  he  commits  it  or  no,  it  leaves  a  stain  and 
a  guilt  upon  his  conscience  ;  and,  according  to  the  spiritual  and 
severe  accounts  of  the  law,  is  made  in  a  great  respect  his  own. 
So  that  by  this  means,  there  is  a  kind  of  transmigration  of  sins, 
much  like  that  which  Pythagoras  held  of  souls.  Such  a  one  to 
be  sure  it  is,  as  makes  a  man  not  only,  according  to  the  apostle's 
phrase,  a  "  partaker  of  other  men's  sins,"  but  also  a  deriver  of 
the  whole  entire  guilt  of  them  to  himself ;  and  yet  so  as  to  leave 
the  committer  of  them  as  full  of  guilt  as  he  was  before. 

From  whence  we  see  the  infinitely  fruitful  and  productive 
power  of  this  way  of  sinning ;  how  it  can  increase  and  multiply 
beyond  all  bounds  and  measures  of  actual  commission,  and  how 
vastly  it  swells  the  sinner's  account  in  an  instant.  So  that  a 
man  shall,  out  of  the  various  and  even  numberless  kinds  of 
villany  acted  by  all  the  people  and  nations  round  about  him,  as 
it  were,  extract  one  mighty,  comprehensive  guilt,  and  adopt  it  to 
himself,  and  so  become  chargeable  with,  and  accountable  for,  a 
world  of  sin  without  a  figure. 

3.  The  third  and  last  reason  that  I  shall  assign,  of  the  extra- 
ordinary guilt  attending  a  man's  being  disposed  to  take  pleasure 
in  other  men's  sins,  shall  be  taken  from  the  soul's  preparation 
and  passage  to  such  a  disposition  ;  for  that  it  presupposes  and 
includes  in  it  the  guilt  of  many  preceding  sins.  For,  as  it  has  been 
shown,  a  man  must  have  passed  many  periods  of  sin  before  he  can 
arrive  to  it ;  and  have  served  a  long  apprenticeship  to  the  devil, 
before  he  can  come  to  such  a  perfection  and  maturity  in  vice,  as 
this  imports.  It  is  a  collection  of  a  long  and  numerous  train  of 
villanies,  the  compendium  and  sum  total  of  several  particular 
impieties,  all  united  and  cast  up  into  one.  It  is,  as  it  were,  the 
very  quintessence  and  sublimation  of  vice,  by  which,  as  in  the 
spirit  of  liquors,  the  malignity  of  many  actions  is  contracted  into 
a  little  compass,  but  with  a  greater  advantage  of  strength  and 
force,  by  such  a  contraction. 

In  a  word,  it  is  the  wickedness  of  a  whole  life,  discharging  all 
its  filth  and  foulness  into  this  one  quality,  as  into  a  great  sink  or 


288 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVII. 


common  shore.  So  that  nothing  is,  or  can  be,  so  properly  and 
significantly  called  the  "  very  sinfulness  of  sin,"  as  this.  And 
therefore  no  wonder,  if  containing  so  many  years'  guilt  in  the 
bowels  of  it,  it  stands  here  stigmatized  by  the  apostle,  as  a  temper 
of  mind,  rendering  men  so  detestably  bad,  that  the  great  enemy 
of  mankind,  the  devil  himself,  neither  can  nor  desires  to  make 
them  worse.  I  cannot,  I  need  not  say  any  more  of  it.  It  is 
indeed  a  condition  not  to  be  thought  of,  by  persons  serious  enough 
to  think  and  consider,  without  the  utmost  horror.  But  such  as 
truly  fear  God,  shall  both  be  kept  from  it,  and  from  those  sins  that 
lead  to  it. 

To  which  God,  infinitely  wise,  holy,  and  just,  be  rendered  and 
ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion, 
both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


289 


SERMON  XVIII. 

OF   THE  HEINOUS   SIN   OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  MEN'S 

sins. —  Continued. 
Romans  l  32. 

Who  knowing  the  judgment  of  God,  that  they  which  commit  such 
things  are  worthy  of  death,  not  only  do  the  same,  but  have  plea- 
sure in  them  that  do  them. 

The  sense  of  these  words  I  showed,  in  the  preceding  discourse, 
fell  naturally  into  this  one  proposition  :  viz. 

That  the  guilt  arising  from  a  man's  delighting  or  taking  pleasure 
in  other  men's  sins,  or  (which  is  all  one)  in  other  men  for  their  sins, 
is  greater  than  he  can  possibly  contract  by  a  commission  of  the  same 
sins  in  his  own  person. 

The  prosecution  of  which  I  stated  upon  these  three  things : 

First,  To  show  what  it  is  that  brings  a  man  to  such  a  disposition 
of  mind,  as  to  take  pleasure  in  other  men's  sins. 

Secondly  to  show  the  reasons  why  a  man's  being  disposed  to  do 
so,  comes  to  be  attended  with  such  an  extraordinary  guilt. 

Thirdly,  and  lastly,  To  declare  what  kind  of  persons  are  to  be 
reckoned  under  this  character. 

The  first  two  of  which  being  despatched  already,  I  proceed 
now  to  the  third  and  last :  concerning  which,  I  shall  lay  down 
this  general  assertion :  That  whosoever  draws  others  to  sin,  ought 
to  be  looked  upon  as  one  delighting  in  those  sins  that  he  draws 
them  to.  Forasmuch  as  no  man  is  brought  to  do  any  thing,  espe- 
cially if  it  be  ill  or  wicked,  but  in  order  to  the  pleasing  of  himself 
by  it ;  it  being  absurd  and  incredible,  that  any  one  should  venture 
to  damn  himself  hereafter,  for  that  which  does  not  some  way  or  other 
gratify  and  please  him  here.  But  to  draw  forth  this  general  into 
particulars. 

I.  First  of  all :  Those  are  to  be  accounted  to  take  pleasure 
in  other  men's  sins,  who  teach  doctrines  directly  tending  to  en- 
gage such  as  believe  them,  in  a  sinful  course.  For  there  is  none 
so  compendious  and  efficacious  a  way  to  prepare  a  man  for  all  sin, 
as  this :  this  being  properly  to  put  out  the  eyes  of  that  which  is 
to  be  his  guide,  by  perverting  his  judgment ;  and  when  that  is 
once  done,  you  may  carry  him  whither  you  will.  Chance  must  be 
his  rule,  and  present  appetite  his  director.  A  man's  judgment, 
or  conscience,  is  the  great  spring  of  all  his  actions ;  and  conse- 
quently, to  corrupt  or  pervert  this,  is  to  derive  a  contagion  upon 
all  that  he  does.     And  therefore  we  see  how  high  a  guilt  our 

Vol.  t — 37  2B 


290 


DR.   SOUTH?S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVIII. 


Saviour  charges  upon  this  in  Matt.  v.  19,  "  Whosoever  shall 
break  one  of  these  least  commandments,  and  shall  teach  men  so, 
shall  be  called  the  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven :"  that  is,  in 
truth,  shall  never  come  thither.  And  we  find  the  great  sin  of 
the  Pharisees  was,  that  they  promoted  and  abetted  the  sins  of 
other  men,  taught  the  devil's  doctrine  out  of  Moses'  chair,  and 
by  false  descants  upon  the  divine  precepts,  cut  asunder  the  bind- 
ing force  of  them  :  so  that,  according  to  their  wretched  com- 
ments, men  might  break  the  law,  and  yet  never  sin  against  it. 
For,  in  Matt.  xv.  5,  6,  they  had  taught  men  how  to  dishonour 
their  parents,  without  any  violation  of  the  fifth  commandment. 
Thus  they  preached :  and  what  design  can  any  one  imagine  the 
authors  of  such  doctrines  could  have,  but  the  depravation  of 
men's  manners !  For,  if  some  men  teach  wicked  things,  it  must 
be  that  others  should  practise  them.  And  if  one  man  sets 
another  a  copy,  it  is  no  doubt  with  a  purpose  that  he  should  write 
after  it. 

Now  these  doctrines  are  of  two  sorts. 

1 .  Such  as  represent  actions  that  are  in  themselves  really  wicked 
and  sinful,  as  not  so.  2.  Such  as  represent  them  much  less  sinful 
as  to  their  kind  or  degrees,  than  indeed  they  are. 

For  the  first  of  which ;  to  instance  in  one  very  gross  one, 
instead  of  many,  take  the  doctrine  of  those  commonly  called 
Antinomians,  who  assert  positively,  that  believers  or  persons 
regenerate,  and  within  the  covenant  of  grace,  cannot  sin.  Upon 
which  account,  no  wonder  if  some  very  liberally  assume  to  them- 
selves the  condition  and  character  of  believers ;  for  then  they 
know  that  other  mighty  privilege  belongs  to  them  of  course. 
But  what  ?  May  not  these  believers  cheat  and  lie,  commit  adul- 
tery, steal,  murder,  and  rebel  ?  Why,  yes,  they  may ;  and  nothing 
is  more  common  than  to  see  such  believers  do  such  things.  But 
how  then  can  they  escape  the  charge  of  all  that  guilt  that  natu- 
rally follows  from  such  enormities  ?  Why,  thus  ;  you  must  in  this 
rase  with  great  care  and  accuracy  distinguish  between  the  act  of 
lying  and  the  sin  of  lying,  the  act  of  stealing,  and  the  sin  of 
stealing,  and  the  act  of  rebellion  and  the  sin  of  rebellion.  Now, 
though  all  these  acts  are  frequent  and  usual  with  such  per- 
sons, yet  they  are  sure  (as  they  order  the  matter)  never  to 
be  guilty  of  the  sin.  And  the  reason  is,  because  it  is  not 
the  quality  of  the  action  that  derives  a  qualification  upon  the 
person,  so  as  to  render  him  such  or  such,  good  or  bad ;  but 
it  is  the  antecedent  quality  or  condition  of  the  person  that 
denominates  his  actions,  and  stamps  them  good  or  evil.  So 
that  they  are  those  only  who  are  first  wicked,  that  do  wicked 
actions.  But  believers,  and  the  godly,  though  they  do  the 
very  same  things,  yet  they  so  much  outwit  the  devil  in  the 
doing  of  them,  that  they  never  commit  the  same  sins.  But  you 
will  say,  how  came  they  by  such  a  great  and  strange  privilege  ? 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  MEN'S  SINS.  291 

Why,  they  will  tell  you,  it  is  because  they  are  not  under  the 
obliging  power  of  the  law.  And  if  you  ask  further,  how  they 
come  to  get  from  under  that  common  obligation  that  lies  so  hard 
and  heavy  upon  all  the  rest  of  the  world  ;  they  will  tell  you,  it 
is  from  this,  that  believers  instead  of  the  law  have  the  Spirit 
actually  dwelling  in  them,  and  by  an  admirable  kind  of  invisible 
clock-work  moving  them  just  as  a  spring  does  a  watch  ;  and  that 
immediately  by  himself  alone,  without  the  mediation  of  any 
written  law  or  rule  to  guide  or  direct,  and  much  less  to  command 
or  oblige  them.  So  that  the  Spirit,  we  see,  is  to  be  their  sole 
director,  without,  and  very  often  contrary  to  the  written  law. 
An  excellent  contrivance,  doubtless,  to  authorize  and  sanctify 
the  blackest  and  most  flagitious  actions  that  can  proceed  from 
man.  For  since  the  motions  of  the  Spirit,  which  they  so  confi- 
dently suppose  themselves  to  have,  cannot  so  much  as  in  things 
good  and  lawful,  by  any  certain  diagnostic,  be  distinguished  from 
the  motions  of  a  man's  own  heart,  they  very  easily  make  a  step 
further,  and  even  in  things  unlawful,  conclude  the  motions  of 
their  own  hearts  to  be  the  impulse  of  the  Spirit ;  and  this  pre- 
sently alters  the  whole  complexion  of  an  action,  that  would 
otherwise  look  but  very  scurvily ;  and  makes  it  absolutely  pure 
and  unblameable,  or  rather  perfect  and  meritorious.  So  that  let 
a  man  have  but  impudence  and  wickedness  enough  to  libel  his 
Maker,  and  to  entitle  the  Spirit  of  God  to  all  that  he  does  or 
desires,  surnaming  his  own  inclination  and  appetites,  though 
never  so  irregular  and  impure,  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  you  may, 
upon  very  sure  grounds,  turn  him  loose,  and  bid  him  sin  if  he 
can.  And  thus  much  for  the  first  sort  of  doctrines,  which  once 
believed,  like  the  flood-gates  of  hell  pulled  up,  lets  in  a  deluge, 
and  inundation  of  all  sin  and  vice  upon  the  lives  of  men.  And 
if  this  be  the  natural  effect  of  the  doctrines  themselves,  we  can- 
not in  all  reason  but  infer,  that  the  interest  of  the  teachers  of  them 
must  needs  be  agreeable. 

2.  The  other  sort  of  doctrines  tending  to  engage  such  as  be- 
lieve them  in  a  sinful  course,  are  such  as  represent  many  sins 
much  less  as  to  their  kind  or  degree,  than  indeed  they  are.  Of 
which  number  is  that  doctrine,  that  asserts  all  sins  committed  by 
believefs,  or  persons  in  a  state  of  grace,  to  be  but  infirmities. 
That  there  are  such  things  as  sins  of  infirmity,  in  contradistinction 
to  those  of  presumption,  is  a  truth  not  to  be  questioned  ;  but  in 
kypothesi  to  state  exactly  which  are  sins  of  infirmity,  and  which 
are  not,  is  not  so  easy  a  work.  This  is  certain,  that  there  is  a 
vast  difference  between  them ;  indeed,  as  vast  as  between  in- 
advertency and  deliberation,  between  surprise  and  set  purpose  : 
and  that  persons  truly  regenerate  have  sinned  this  latter  way, 
and  consequently  may  sin  so  again,  is  as  evident  as  the  story 
(already  referred  to  by  us)  of  David's  murder  and  adultery,  sins 
acted  not  only  with  deliberation,  but  with  artifice,  study  and 


292 


DR.   SOUTIl's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVIII. 


deep  contrivance.  And  can  sins,  that  carry  such  dismal  marks 
and  black  symptoms  upon  them,  pass  for  infirmities  ?  for  sins  of 
daily  incursion,  and  such  as  human  frailty,  and  the  very  condition 
of  our  nature  in  this  world  is  so  unavoidably  liable  to  (for  so  are 
sins  of  infirmity),  that  a  "  righteous  man  may  fall  into  them 
seven  times  in  a  day and  yet,  according  to  the  merciful  tenor 
of  the  covenant  of  grace,  stand  accepted  before  God  as  a  righte- 
ous man  still  ?  No,  certainly,  if  such  are  infirmities,  it  will  be 
hard  to  assign  what  are  presumptions.  And  what  a  sin-encour- 
aging doctrine  that  is,  that  avouches  them  for  such,  is  suffi- 
ciently manifest  from  hence,  that  although  every  sin  of  infirmity, 
in  its  own  nature,  and  according  to  the  strict  rigour  of  the  law, 
merits  eternal  death,  yet  it  is  certain  from  the  gospel,  that  no 
man  shall  actually  suffer  eternal  death  barely  for  sins  of  infirmity. 
Which  being  so,  persuade  but  a  man  that  a  regenerate  person 
may  cheat,  and  lie,  steal,  murder,  and  rebel,  by  way  of  infirmity, 
and  at  the  same  time  you  persuade  him  also,  that  he  may  do  all 
this  without  any  danger  of  damnation.  And  then,  since  these 
are  oftentimes  such  desirable  privileges  to  flesh  and  blood  :  and 
since  withal,  every  man  by  nature  is  so  very  prone  to  think  the 
best  of  himself  and  of  his  own  condition :  it  is  odds,  but  he  will 
find  a  shrewd  temptation  to  believe  himself  regenerate,  rather 
than  forbear  a  pleasurable  or  a  profitable  sin,  by  thinking  that  he 
shall  go  to  hell  for  committing  it.  Now  this  being  such  a  direct 
manuduction  to  all  kinds  of  sin,  by  abusing  the  conscience  with 
undervaluing  persuasions  concerning  the  malignity  and  guilt  even 
of  the  foulest ;  it  is  evident,  that  such  as  teach  and  promote  the 
belief  of  such  doctrines,  are  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  devil's 
prophets  and  apostles ;  and  there  is  no  doubt,  but  the  guilt  of 
every  sin,  that  either  from  pulpit  or  from  press  they  influence 
men  to  the  commission  of,  does  as  certainly  rest  upon  them,  and 
will  one  day  be  as  severely  exacted  of  them,  as  if  they  had 
actually  and  personally  committed  it  themselves. 

And  thus  I  have  instanced  in  two  notable  doctrines,  that  may 
justly  be  looked  upon  as  the  general  inlets,  or  two  great  gates, 
through  which  all  vice  and  villany  rush  in  upon  the  manners  of 
men  professing  religion.  But  the  particulars  into  which  these 
generals  diffuse  themselves,  you  may  look  for,  and  find  in  those 
well  furnished  magazines  and  storehouses  of  all  immorality  and 
baseness,  the  books  and  writings  of  some  modern  casuists  ;  who, 
like  the  devil's  amanuenses,  and  secretaries  to  the  prince  of  dark- 
ness, have  published  to  the  world  such  notions  and  intrigues 
of  sin  out  of  his  cabinet,  as  neither  the  wit  or  wickedness  of 
man,  upon  the  bare  natural  stock,  either  of  invention  or  corrup- 
tion, could  ever  have  found  out.  The  writings,  both  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testament,  make  it  very  difficult  for  a  man  to  be 
saved  ;  but  the  writings  of  these  men  make  it  more  difficult,  if 
not  impossible,  for  any  one  to  be  damned :  for  where  there  is  no 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  MEN'S  SINS.  293 

sin,  there  can  be  no  damnation.  And  as  these  men  have  ob- 
scured and  confounded  the  natures  and  properties  of  things  by  their 
false  principles  and  wretched  sophistry,  though  an  act  be  never  so 
sinful,  they  will  be  sure  to  strip  it  of  its  guilt;  and  to  make  the 
very  law  and  rule  of  action  so  pliable  and  bending,  that  it  shall  be 
impossible  to  be  broken.  So  that  he  who  goes  to  hell  must  pass 
through  a  narrower  gate  than  that  which  the  gospel  says  leads  to 
heaven.  For  that,  we  are  told,  is  only  strait,  but  this  is  absolutely 
shut ;  and  so  shut  that  sin  cannot  pass  it,  and  therefore  it  is  much 
if  a  sinner  should. 

So  insufferably  have  these  impostors  poisoned  the  fountains  of 
morality,  perverted  and  embased  the  very  standard  and  distinguish- 
ing rule  of  good  and  evil.  So  that  all  their  books  and  writings  are 
but  debauchery  upon  record,  and  impiety  registered  and  consigned 
over  to  posterity. 

In  every  volume  there  is  a  nursery  and  plantation  of  vice,  where 
it  is  sure  to  thrive,  and  from  thence  to  be  transplanted  into  men's 
practice.  For  here  it  is  manured  with  art  and  argument,  sheltered 
with  fallacy  and  distinction,  and  thereby  enabled  both  to  annoy 
others  and  to  defend  itself. 

And  to  show  how  far  the  malignity  of  this  way  of  sinning 
reaches  :  he,  who  has  vented  a  pernicious  doctrine,  or  published 
an  ill  book,  must  know  that  his  guilt  and  his  life  determine  not 
together.  No,  such  a  one,  as  the  apostle  says,  "  being  dead,  yet 
speaketh ;"  he  sins  in  his  very  grave,  corrupts  others  while  he  is 
rotting  himself,  and  has  a  growing  account  in  the  other  world, 
after  he  has  paid  nature's  last  debt  in  this  ;  and  in  a  word,  quits 
this  life  like  a  man  carried  off  by  the  plague  ;  who,  though  he 
dies  himself,  yet  does  execution  upon  others  by  a  surviving 
infection. 

II.  Such  also  are  to  be  reckoned  to  take  pleasure  in  other 
men's  sins,  as  endeavour  by  all  means  to  allure  men  to  sin,  and 
that  either  by  formal  persuasions,  importunity  or  desire,  as  we 
find  the  harlot  described,  enticing  the  young  man,  in  Prov.  vii., 
from  ver.  13  to  22.  Or  else  by  administering  objects  and  occa- 
sions fit  to  inflame  or  draw  forth  a  man's  corrupt  affections ;  such 
as  are  the  drinking  of  a  choleric  or  revengeful  person  into  a  fit 
of  rage  and  violence  against  the  person  of  his  neighbour ;  thus 
heating  one  man's  blood  in  order  to  the  shedding  of  another's. 
Such  also  is  the  provoking  of  a  lustful,  incontinent  person,  by 
filthy  discourse,  wanton  books,  and  pictures:  and  that  which 
equals  and  exceeds  them  all,  the  incentives  of  the  stage ;  till  a 
man's  vice  and  folly  works  over  all  bounds,  and  grows  at  length 
too  mad  and  outrageous  to  be  either  governed  or  concealed. 

Now  with  great  variety  of  such  kind  of  traders  for  hell  as 
these,  has  the  nation  of  late  years  abounded.  Wretches  who  live 
upon  the  shark,  and  other  men's  sins,  the  common  poisoners  of 
youth,  equally  desperate  in  their  fortunes  and  their  manners,  and 

2b2 


294 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVIII. 


getting  their  very  bread  by  the  damnation  of  souls.  So  that  if 
any  unexperienced  young  novice  happens  into  the  fatal  neigh- 
bourhood of  such  pests,  presently  they  are  upon  him,  plying  his 
full  purse  and  his  empty  pate  with  addresses  suitable  to  his 
vanity ;  telling  him,  what  pity  it  is,  that  one  so  accomplished  for 
parts  and  person  should  smother  himself  in  the  country,  where 
he  can  learn  nothing  of  gallantry  or  behaviour ;  as  how  to  make 
his  court,  to  hector  a  draw,  to  cog  the  dye,  or  storm  a  whore- 
house ;  but  must  of  necessity  live  and  die  ignorant  of  what  it  is 
to  trepan  or  be  trepanned,  to  sup,  or  rather  dine  at  midnight  in 
a  tavern,  with  the  noise  of  oaths,  blasphemies,  and  fiddlers  about 
his  ears,  and  to  fight  every  watch  and  constable  at  his  return  from 
thence,  and  to  be  beaten  by  them :  but  must  at  length,  poor  man ! 
die  dully  of  old  age  at  home  ;  when  here  he  might  so  fashionably 
and  genteelly,  long  before  that  time,  have  been  duelled  or  fluxed 
into  another  world. 

If  this  be  not  the  guise  and  practice  of  the  times,  especially  as 
to  the  principal  cities  of  the  kingdom,  let  any  one  judge  ;  and 
whether  for  such  a  poor,  deluded  wretch,  instead  of  growing 
rusty  in  the  country,  as  some  call  it,  to  be  thus  brought  by  a 
company  of  indigent,  debauched,  soul-and-body-destroying  har- 
pies, to  lose  his  estate,  family,  and  virtue,  amongst  them  in  the 
city,  be  not  a  much  greater  violation  of  the  public  weal  and 
justice  of  any  government,  than  most  of  those  crimes  that  bring 
the  committers  of  them  to  the  gallows,  we  may  at  present  easily  see, 
and  one  day  perhaps  sadly  feel. 

Nor  is  this  trade  of  corrupting  the  gentry  and  nobility,  and 
seasoning  them  with  the  vices  of  the  great  town,  as  soon  as  they 
set  foot  into  it,  carried  on  secretly  and  in  a  corner,  but  openly 
and  in  the  face  of  the  sun ;  by  persons  who  have  formed  them- 
selves into  companies  or  rather  corporations.  So  that  a  man 
may  as  easily  know  where  to  find  one  to  teach  him  to  debauch, 
whore,  game,  and  blaspheme,  as  to  teach  him  to  write,  or  cast 
accounts :  it  is  their  support  and  business  ;  nay,  their  very  pro- 
fession and  livelihood  ;  getting  their  living  by  those  practices,  for 
which  they  deserve  to  forfeit  their  lives. 

Now  these  are  another  sort  of  men,  who  are  justly  charged 
with  the  guilt  and  character  of  delighting  in  other  men's  sins; 
men  who  are  the  devil's  setters :  who  contrive,  study,  and  beat 
their  brains,  how  to  draw  in  some  poor,  innocent,  unguarded  heir 
into  their  hellish  net,  learning  his  humour,  prying  into  his  cir- 
cumstances, and  observing  his  weak  side  ;  and  all  this  to  plant  the 
snare,  and  apply  the  temptation  effectually  and  successfully ;  and 
when  by  such  insinuations  they  have  once  got  within  him. 
and  are  able  to  drill  him  on  from  one  lewdness  to  another,  by 
the  same  arts  of  corrupting  and  squeezing  him  as  they  please  ;  no 
wonder,  if  they  rejoice  to  see  him  guilty  of  all  sorts  of  villany, 
and  take  pleasure  in  those  sins  in  which  they  find  their  profit  too, 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  Men's  SINS. 


295 


III.  Such  as  affect  the  company  of  infamous  and  vicious  per- 
sons, are  also  to  be  reckoned  in  the  number  of  those  who  take 
pleasure  in  such  men's  vices.  For  otherwise,  what  is  there  in 
such  men,  which  they  can  pretend  to  be  pleased  with!  For 
generally  such  sots  have  neither  parts  nor  wits,  ingenuity  of  dis- 
course, nor  fineness  of  conversation,  to  entertain  or  delight  any 
one,  that,  coming  into  their  company,  brings  but  his  reason  along 
with  him.  But  on  the  contrary,  their  rude,  impertinent  loudness, 
their  quarrels,  their  nastiness,  their  dull  obscene  talk,  and  ribaldry 
(which  from  them  you  must  take  for  wit,  .or  go  without  it),  cannot 
but  be  nauseous  and  offensive  to  any  one  who  does  not  balk  his 
own  reason,  out  of  love  to  their  vice  ;  and,  for  the  sake  of  the  sin 
itself,  pardon  the  ugliness  of  its  circumstances.  As  a  father  will 
hug  and  embrace  his  beloved  son  for  all  the  dirt  and  foulness  of 
his  clothes ;  the  dearness  of  the  person  easily  apologizing  for  the 
disagreeableness  of  the  habit. 

One  would  think  it  should  be  no  easy  matter  to  bring  any  man 
of  sense  to  love  an  ale-house ;  indeed  of  so  much  sense,  as  seeing 
and  smelling  amounts  to,  there  being  such  strong  encounters  of 
both,  as  would  quickly  send  him  packing,  did  not  the  love  of 
good  fellowship  reconcile  him  to  those  nuisances,  and  the  deity  he 
adored  compound  for  the  homeliness  of  its  shrine. 

It  is  clear  therefore,  that  where  a  man  can  like  and  love  the 
conversation  of  lewd,  debauched  persons,  amidst  all  the  natural 
grounds  and  motives  of  loathing  and  dislike,  it  can  proceed  from 
nothing  but  the  inward  affection  he  bears  to  their  lewd,  debauched 
humour.  It  is  this  he  enjoys ;  and  for  the  sake  of  this,  the  rest 
he  endures. 

IV.  And,  lastly,  such  as  encourage,  countenance,  and  support 
men  in  their  sins,  are  to  be  reckoned  in  the  number  of  those 
who  take  pleasure  in  other  men's  sins.  Now  this  may  be  done 
two  ways : 

First,  By  commendation.  Concerning  which  we  may  take  this 
for  granted ;  that  no  man  commends  another  any  further  than  he 
likes  him :  for  indeed  to  commend  any  one  is  to  vouch  him  to  the 
world,  to  undertake  for  his  worth,  and,  in  a  word,  to  own  the 
thing  which  he  is  chiefly  remarkable  for.  He  who  writes  an 
encomium  Neronis,  if  he  does  it  heartily  is  himself  but  a  transcript 
of  Nero  in  his  mind ;  and  would,  no  doubt,  gladly  enough  see 
such  pranks,  as  he  was  famous  for,  acted  again,  though  he  dare 
not  be  the  actor  of  them  himself. 

From  whence  we  see  the  reason  of  some  men's  giving  such 
honourable  names  and  appellations  to  the  worst  of  men  and 
actions,  and  base,  reproachful  titles  to  the  best:  such  as  are 
calling  faction,  and  a  spitting  in  their  prince's  face,  petitioning ; 
fanaticism  and  schism,  true  protestantism ;  sacrilege  and  rapine, 
thorough  reformation,  and  the  like.  As  on  the  contrary,  brand- 
ing conformity  to  the  rules  and  rites  of  the  best  church  in  the 


296 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVIII. 


world,  with  the  false  and  odious  name  of  formality ;  and  tra- 
ducing all  religious,  conscientious  observers  of  them,  as  mongrel 
protectants j  and  papists  in  masquerade.  And  indeed,  many  are  and 
have  been  called  papists  of  late  years,  whom  those  very  persons, 
who  call  them  so,  know  to  be  far  from  being  so.  But  what  then  do 
they  mean  by  fixing  such  false  characters  upon  men,  even  against 
their  own  consciences  ?  Why,  they  mean  and  design  this ;  they 
would  set  such  a  mark  upon  those  whom  they  hate,  as  may  cause 
their  throats  to  be  cut,  and  their  estates  to  be  seized  upon,  when 
the  rabble  shall  be  let  loose  upon  the  government  once  again  : 
which  such  beggarly,  malicious  fellows  impatiently  hope  ana 
long  for. 

Though  I  doubt  not,  how  much  soever  knaves  may  abuse  fools 
with  words  for  a  time,  but  there  will  come  a  day,  in  which  the 
most  active  papists  will  be  found  under  the  puritan  mask ;  in 
which  it  will  appear,  that  the  conventicle  has  been  the  Jesuits' 
safest  kennel,  and  the  papists  themselves,  as  well  as  the  fanatics, 
have  been  managers  of  those  monstrous  outcries  against  popery, 
to  the  ruin  of  those  protestants  whom  they  most  hate,  and  whom 
alone  they  fear.  It  being  no  unheard  of  trick  for  a  thief,  when 
he  is  closely  pursued,  to  cry  out,  "  Stop  the  thief,"  and  thereby 
diverting  the  suspicion  from  himself,  to  get  clear  away.  It  is 
also  worth  our  while  to  consider  with  what  terms  of  respect  and 
commendation  knaves  and  sots  will  speak  of  their  own  fraternity. 
As,  What  an  honest,  what  a  worthy  man  is  such  a  one !  And, 
what  a  good-natured  person  is  another !  According  to  which 
terms,  such  as  are  factious,  by  worthy  men,  mean  only  such  as 
are  of  the  same  faction,  and  united  in  the  same  designs  against  the 
government  with  themselves.  And  such  as  are  brothers  of  the 
pot,  by  a  good-natured  person,  mean  only  a  true,  trusty  debauchee, 
who  never  stands  out  at  a  merry-meeting,  so  long  as  he  is  able  to 
stand  at  all :  nor  ever  refuses  a  health,  while  he  has  enough  of 
his  own  to  pledge  it  with  ;  and,  in  a  word,  is  as  honest,  as  drunk- 
enness and  debauchery,  want  of  sense  and  reason,  virtue  and 
sobriety,  can  possibly  make  him. 

Secondly,  The  other  way  by  which  some  men  encourage  others 
in  their  sins  is  by  preferment.  As,  when  men  shall  be  advanced 
to  places  of  trust  and  honour  for  those  qualities  that  render  them 
unworthy  of  so  much  as  sober  and  civil  company.  When  a  lord 
or  master  shall  cast  his  favours  and  rewards  upon  such  beasts  and 
blemishes  of  society,  as  live  only  to  the  dishonour  of  Him  who 
made  them,  and  the  reproach  of  Him  who  maintains  them. 
None  certainly  can  love  to  see  vice  in  power,  but  such  as  love  to 
see  it  also  in  practice.  Place  and  honour  do  of  all  things  most 
misbecome  it ;  and  a  goat  or  a  swine  in  a  chair  of  state,  cannot 
be  more  odious  than  ridiculous. 

It  is  reported  of  Caesar,  that  passing  through  a  certain  town, 
and  seeing   all  the  women  of  it  standing  at  their  doors  with 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  Men's  SINS. 


297 


monkeys  in  their  arms,  he  asked,  whether  the  women  of  that 
country  used  to  have  any  children  or  not?  Thereby  wittily  and 
sarcastically  reproaching  them,  for  misplacing  that  affection  upon 
brutes  which  could  only  become  a  mother  to  her  child.  So, 
when  we  come  into  a  great  family  or  government,  and  see  this 
place  of  honour  allotted  to  a  murderer,  another  filled  with  an 
atheist  or  blasphemer,  and  a  third  with  a  filthy  parasite,  may  we 
not  as  appositely  and  properly  ask  the  question,  whether  there 
be  any  such  thing  as  virtue,  sobriety,  or  religion  amongst  such  a 
people,  with  whom  vice  wears  those  rewards,  honours,  and  privi- 
leges, which  in  other  nations,  the  common  judgment  of  reason 
awards  only  to  the  virtuous,  the  sober  and  religious  ?  And  cer- 
tainly it  is  too  flagrant  a  demonstration,  how  much  vice  is  the 
darling  of  any  people,  when  many  amongst  them  are  preferred  for 
those  practices  for  which,  in  other  places,  they  can  scarce  be 
pardoned. 

And  thus  I  have  finished  the  third  and  last  general  thing  pro- 
posed, for  the  handling  of  the  words,  which  was  to  show  the  several 
sorts  or  kinds  of  men,  which  fall  under  the  charge  and  character  of 
taking  pleasure  in  other  men's  sins. 

Now  the  inferences  from  the  foregoing  particulars  shall  be  two- 
fold. 

1.  Such  as  concern  particular  persons  ;  and,  2.  Such  as  concern 
communities  or  bodies  of  men. 

And  first  for  the  malignity  of  such  a  disposition  of  mind,  as  in- 
duces a  man  to  delight  in  other  men's  sins,  with  reference  to  the 
effects  of  it  upon  particular  persons.  As, 

(l.)  It  quite  alters  and  depraves  the  natural  frame  of  a  man's 
heart.  For  there  is  that  naturally  in  the  heart  of  man,  which 
abhors  sin  as  sin ;  and  consequently  would  make  him  detest  it 
both  in  himself  and  in  others  too.  The  first  and  most  genuine 
principles  of  reason  are  certainly  averse  to  it,  and  find  a  secret 
grief  and  remorse  from  every  invasion  that  sin  makes  upon  a 
man's  innocence ;  and  that  must  needs  render  the  first  entrance 
and  admission  of  sin  uneasy,  because  disagreeable.  Yet  time, 
we  see,  and  custom  of  sinning,  can  bring  a  man  to  such  a  pass, 
that  it  shall  be  more  difficult  and  grievous  to  him  to  part  with 
his  sin,  than  ever  it  was  for  him  to  admit  it.  It  shall  get  so  far 
into,  and  lodge  itself  so  deep  within  his  heart,  that  it  shall  he  his ' 
business  and  his  recreation,  his  companion,  and  his  other  self ;  and 
the  very  dividing  between  his  flesh  and  his  bones,  or  rafher,  be- 
tween his  body  and  his  soul,  shall  be  less  terrible  and  afflictive  to 
him,  than  to  be  taken  off  from  his  vice. 

Nevertheless,  as  unnatural  as  this  effect  of  sin  is,  there  is  one 
yet  more  so  ;  for  that  innate  principle  of  self-love,  that  very 
easily  and  often  blinds  a  man,  as  to  any  impartial  reflection  upon 
himself ;  yet  for  the  most  part  leaves  his  eyes  open  enough  to 
judge  truly  of  the  same  thing  in  his  neighbour,  and  to  hate  that 

Vol.  I.— 38 


298 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVIII. 


in  others,  which  he  allows  and  cherishes  in  himself.  And  there- 
fore, when  it  shall  come  to  this,  that  he  also  approves,  embraces, 
and  delights  in  sin,  as  he  observes  it,  even  in  the  person  and 
practice  of  other  men  ;  this  shows  that  the  man  is  wholly  trans- 
formed form  the  creature  that  God  first  made  him ;  nay,  that  he 
has  consumed  those  poor  remainders  of  good  that  the  sin  of  Adam 
left  him  ;  that  he  has  worn  off  the  very  remote  dispositions  and 
possibilities  to  virtue ;  and,  in  a  word,  turned  grace  first,  and 
afterward  nature  itself  out  of  doors.  No  man  knows  at  his 
first  entrance  upon  any  sin,  how  far  it  may  carry  him,  and  where 
it  will  stop ;  the  commission  of  sin  being  generally  like  the  pour- 
ing out  of  water,  which,  when  once  poured  out,  knows  no  other 
bounds,  but  to  run  as  far  as  it  can. 

(2.)  A  second  effect  of  this  disposition  of  mind  is,  that  it  pecu- 
liarly indisposes  a  man  to  repent  and  recover  himself  from  it. 
For  the  first  step  to  repentance  is  a  man's  dislike  of  his  sin :  and 
how  can  we  expect  that  a  man  should  conceive  any  thorough 
dislike  of  that  which  has  taken  such  an  absolute  possession  of  his 
heart  and  affections,  that  he  likes  and  loves  it,  not  only  in  his  own 
practice,  but  also  in  other  men's  ?  Nay,  that  he  is  pleased  with  it, 
though  he  is  past  the  practice  of  it.  Such  a  temper  of  mind  is  a 
downright  contradiction  to  repentance ;  as  being  founded  in  the 
destruction  of  those  qualities  which  are  the  only  dispositions  and 
preparatives  to  it.  For  that  natural  tenderness  of  conscience, 
which  must  first  create  in  the  soul  a  sense  of  sin,  and  from  thence 
produce  a  sorrow  for  it,  and  at  length  cause  a  relinquishment  of 
it ;  that,  I  say,  we  have  already  shown,  is  taken  away  by  a  cus- 
tomary repeated  course  of  sinning  against  conscience.  So  that 
the  very  first  foundation  of  virtue,  which  is  the  natural  power  of 
distinguishing  between  the  moral  good  and  evil  of  any  action,  is, 
in  effect,  plucked  up  and  destroyed,  and  the  Spirit  of  God  finds 
nothing  in  the  heart  of  such  a  one  to  apply  the  means  of  grace  to ; 
all  taste,  relish,  and  discernment  of  the  suitableness  of  virtue,  and 
the  unsuitableness  of  vice,  being  utterly  gone  from  it. 

And  as  this  is  a  direct  bar  to  that  part  of  repentance,  which 
looks  back  with  sorrow  and  indignation  upon  what  is  past ;  so  is 
it  equally  such,  to  that  greater  part  of  repentance,  which  is  to 
look  forward,  and  to  prevent  sin  for  the  future.  For  this  pro- 
perly delivers  a  man  up  to  sin ;  forasmuch  as  it  leaves  his  heart 
destitute  of  all  those  principles  which  should  resist  it.  So  that 
such  a  one  must  be  as  bad  as  the  devil  will  have  him,  and  can  be 
no  better  than  the  devil  will  let  him.  In  both  he  must  submit  to 
his  measures.  And  what  is  this  but  a  kind  of  entrance  into,  or 
rather  an  anticipation  of  hell  ?  What  is  it  but  judgment  and  dam- 
nation already  begun  ?  For  a  man,  in  such  a  case,  is  as  sure  of  it, 
as  if  he  were  actually  in  the  flames. 

(3.)  A  third  effect  of  this  disposition  of  mind,  which  also  natu- 
rally follows  from  the  former,  is,  that  the  longer  a  man  lives  the 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  MEN'S  SINS.  299 

wickeder  he  grows,  and  his  last  days  are  certainly  his  worst.  It 
has  been  observed,  that  to  delight  in  other  men's  sins,  was  most 
properly  the  vice  of  old  age  ;  and  we  shall  also  find  that  it  may 
be  as  truly  and  properly  called  the  old  age  of  vice.  For,  as  first, 
old  age  necessarily  implies  a  man's  having  lived  so  many  years 
before  it  comes  upon  him  ;  and  withal,  this  sort  of  viciousness 
supposes  the  precedent  commission  of  many  sins,  by  which  a 
man  arrives  to  it ;  so  it  has  this  further  property  of  old  age. : 
that,  as  when  a  man  comes  once  to  be  old,  he  never  retreats,  but 
still  goes  on,  and  grows  every  day  older  and  older  ;  so  when  a 
man  comes  once  to  such  a  degree  of  wickedness,  as  to  delight  in 
the  wickedness  of  other  men,  it  is  more  than  ten  thousand  to  one 
odds,  if  he  ever  returns  to  a  better  mind,  but  grows  every  day 
worse  and  worse.  For  he  has  nothing  else  to  take  up  his 
thoughts,  and  nothing  to  entertain  his  desires  with  ;  which,  by  a 
long  estrangement  from  better  things,  come  at  length  perfectly  to 
loathe  and  fly  off  from  them. 

A  notable  instance  of  which  we  have  in  Tiberius  Csesar,  who 
was  bad  enough  in  his  youth,  but  superlatively  and  monstrously 
so  in  his  old  age  :  and  the  reason  of  this  was,  because  he  took  a 
particular  pleasure  in  seeing  other  men  do  vile  and  odious  things. 
So  that  all  his  diversion  at  his  beloved  Capreae  was  to  be  a  spec- 
tator of  the  devil's  actors,  representing  the  worst  of  vices  upon 
that  infamous  stage. 

And  therefore  let  not  men  flatter  themselves,  as  no  doubt 
some  do,  that  though  they  find  it  difficult  at  present  to  combat 
and  stand  out  against  an  ill  practice,  and  upon  that  account  give 
way  to  a  continuance  in  it ;  yet  that  old  age  shall  do  that  for 
them,  which  they  in  their  youth  could  never  find  in  their  heart 
to  do  for  themselves ;  I  say,  let  not  such  persons  mock  and 
abuse  themselves  with  such  false  and  absurd  presumptions.  For 
they  must  know,  that  a  habit  may  continue  when  it  is  no  longer 
able  to  act ;  or  rather  the  elicit,  internal  acts  of  it  may  be  quick 
and  vigorous,  when  the  external,  imperate  acts  of  the  same  habit 
utterly  cease  :  and  let  men  but  reflect  upon  their  own  observa- 
tion, and  consider  impartially  with  themselves,  how  few  in  the 
world  they  have  known  made  better  by  age.  Generally  they 
will  see,  that  such  leave  not  their  vice,  but  their  vice  leaves 
them,  or  rather  retreats  from  their  practices,  and  retires  into 
their  fancy ;  and  that,  we  know,  is  boundless  and  infinite  :  and 
when  vice  has  once  settled  itself  there,  it  finds  a  vaster  and  a 
wider  compass  to  act  in  than  ever  it  had  before.  I  scarce  know 
any  thing  that  calls  for  a  more  serious  consideration  from  us 
than  this :  for  still  men  are  apt  to  persuade  themselves,  that  they 
shall  find  it  an  easy  matter  to  grow  virtuous  as  they  grow  old. 
But  it  is  a  way  of  arguing  highly  irrational  and  fallacious.  For 
this  is  a  maxim  of  eternal  truth,  that  nothing  grows  weak  with 
age,  but  that  which  will  at  length  die  with  age  ;  which  sin  never 


300 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XVIII. 


does.  The  longer  a  blot  continues  the  deeper  it  sinks.  And  it 
will  be  found  a  work  of  no  small  difficulty  to  dispossess  and 
throw  out  a  vice  from  that  heart,  where  long  possession  begins  to 
plead  prescription.  It  is  naturally  impossible  for  an  old  man  to 
grow  young  again  ;  and  it  is  next  to  impossible  for  a  decrepit  aged 
sinner  to  become  a  new  creature,  and  be  born  again. 

(4.)  And  lastly,  We  need  no  other  argument  of  the  malign 
effects  of  this  disposition  of  mind,  than  this  one  consideration  ; 
that  many  perish  eternally  who  never  arrived  to  such  a  pitch  of 
wickedness  as  to  take  any  pleasure  in,  or  indeed  to  be  at  all 
concerned  about,  the  sins  of  other  men.  But  they  perish  in  the 
pursuit  of  their  own  lusts,  and  the  obedience  they  personally  yield 
to  their  own  sinful  appetites :  and  that  questionless,  very  often  not 
without  a  considerable  mixture  of  inward  dislike  of  themselves 
for  what  they  do :  yet  for  all  that,  their  sin,  we  see,  proving  too 
hard  for  them,  the  overpowering  stream  carries  them  away,  and 
down  they  sink  into  the  bottomless  pit,  though  under  the  weight 
of  a  guilt,  by  vast  degrees  inferior  to  that  which  we  have  been 
discoursing  of.  For  doubtless,  many  men  are  finally  lost,  who 
yet  have  no  men's  sins  to  answer  for  but  their  own :  who  never 
enticed  nor  perverted  others  to  sin,  and  much  less  applauded  or 
encouraged  them  in  their  sin  ;  but  only  being  slaves  to  their  own 
corrupt  affections,  have  lived  and  died  under  the  killing  power  of 
them,  and  so  passed  to  a  sad  eternity. 

But  that  other  devilish  way  of  sinning,  hitherto  spoken  of,  is 
so  far  beyond  this,  that  this  is  a  kind  of  innocence,  or  rather  a 
kind  of  charity,  compared  to  it.  For  this  is  a  solitary,  single  ; 
that  a  complicated,  multiplied  guilt.  And,  indeed,  if  we  consider 
at  what  a  rate  some  men  sin  now-a-days ;  that  man  sins  charitably 
who  damns  nobody  but  himself.  But  the  other  sort  of  sinners, 
who  may  properly  enough  be  said  to  people  hell,  and,  in  a  very  ill 
sense,  to  "  bear  the  sins  of  many  as  they  have  a  guilt  made  up 
of  many  guilts,  so  what  can  they  reasonably  expect,  but  a  damna- 
tion equivalent  to  many  damnations  ? 

And  thus  much  for  the  first  general  inference,  from  the  fore- 
going discourse,  showing  the  malignity  of  such  a  disposition  of 
mind  as  induces  a  man  to  delight  in  other  men's  sins,  with  refer- 
ence to  particular  persons. 

2.  The  other  inference  shall  be  with  reference  to  communities 
or  bodies  of  men ;  and  so  such  a  disposition  has  a  most  direct 
and  efficacious  influence  to  propagate,  multiply,  and  spread  the 
practice  of  any  sin,  till  it  becomes  general  and  national.  For 
this  is  most  certain,  that  some  men's  taking  pleasure  in  other 
men's  sins,  will  cause  many  men  to  sin  to  do  them  a  pleasure ; 
and  this  will  appear  upon  these  three  accounts.  1.  That  it  is 
seldom  or  never  that  any  man  comes  to  such  a  degree  of  impiety, 
as  to  take  pleasure  in  other  men's  sins,  but  he  also  shows  the 
world,  by  his  actions  and  behaviour,  that  he  does  so.    2.  That 


OF  TAKING  PLEASURE  IN  OTHER  MEN'S  SINS. 


301 


there  are  few  men  in  the  world  so  inconsiderable,  but  there  are  some 
or  other,  who  have  an  interest  to  serve  by  them.  And,  3.  That  the 
natural  course  that  one  man  takes  to  serve  his  interest  by  another  is, 
by  applying  himself  to  him  in  such  a  way  as  may  most  gratify  and 
delight  him. 

Now  from  these  three  things  put  together,  it  is  not  only  easy 
but  necessary  to  infer,  that  since  the  generality  of  men  are 
wholly  acted  by  their  present  interest,  if  they  find  those  who  can 
best  serve  them  in  this  their  interest,  most  likely  also  to  be  gained 
over  so  to  do  by  the  sinful  and  vile  practices  of  those  who  address 
to  them ;  no  doubt  such  practices  shall  be  pursued  by  such  per- 
sons, in  order  to  the  compassing  their  desired  ends.  Where 
greatness  takes  no  delight  in  goodness,  we  may  be  sure,  there 
shall  be  but  little  goodness  seen  in  the  lives  of  those  who  have  an 
interest  to  serve  by  such  a  one's  greatness.  For  take  any  illus- 
trious potent  sinner,  whose  power  is  wholly  employed  to  serve 
his  pleasure,  and  whose  chief  pleasure  is  to  see  others  as  bad  and 
wicked  as  himself;  and  there  is  no  question,  but  in  a  little  time 
he  will  also  make  them  so ;  and  his  dependents  shall  quickly  be- 
come his  proselytes.  They  shall  sacrifice  their  virtue  to  his  hu- 
mour, spend  their  credit  and  good  name,  nay,  and  their  very  souls 
too,  to  serve  him ;  and  that  by  the  worst  and  basest  of  services, 
which  is,  by  making  themselves  like  him.  It  is  but  too  notorious, 
how  long  vice  has  reigned,  or  rather  raged,  amongst  us  ;  and  with 
what  a  bare  face  and  a  brazen  forehead  it  walks  about  the  nation 
as  it  were  elato  capite,  and  looking  down  with  scorn  upon  virtue 
as  a  contemptible  and  a  mean  thing.  Vice  could  not  come  to 
this  pitch  by  chance.  But  we  have  sinned  apace,  and  at  a  higher 
strain  of  villany  than  the  fops  our  ancestors  (as  some  are  pleased 
to  call  them)  could  ever  arrive  to.  So  that  we  daily  see  maturity 
and  age  in  vice  joined  with  youth  and  greenness  of  years.  A 
manifest  argument,  no  doubt,  of  the  great  docility  and  pregnancy 
of  parts,  that  is  in  the  present  age,  above  all  the  former. 

For  in  respect  of  vice,  nothing  is  more  usual  now-a-days,  than 
for  boys  illico  nasci  senes.  They  see  their  betters  delight  in  ill 
things;  they  observe  reputation  and  countenance  to  attend  the 
practice  of  them ;  and  this  carries  them  on  furiously  to  that, 
which  of  themselves  they  are  but  too  much  inclined  to  ;  and  which 
laws  were  purposely  made  by  wise  men  to  keep  them  from.  They 
are  glad,  you  may  be  sure,  to  please  and  prefer  themselves  at  once, 
and  to  serve  their  interest  and  their  sensuality  together. 

And  as  they  are  come  to  this  height  and  rampancy  of  vice,  in 
a  great  measure,  from  the  countenance  of  their  betters  and  su- 
periors ;  so  they  have  taken  some  steps  higher  in  the  same  from 
this,  that  the  follies  or  extravagancies  of  the  young  too  frequently 
carry  with  them  the  suffrage  and  approbation  of  the  old.  For 
age,  which  naturally  and  unavoidably  is  but  one  remove  from 
death,  and  consequently  should  have  nothing  about  it,  but  what 


302 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[sERxM.  XVIII. 


looks  like  a  decent  preparation  for  it,  scarce  ever  appears  of  late 
days  but  in  the  high  mode,  the  flaunting  garb,  and  utmost  gaudery  of 
youth  ;  with  clothes  as  ridiculous,  and  as  much  in  the  fashion,  as 
the  person  that  wears  them  is  usually  grown  out  of  it.  The  eldest 
equal  the  youngest  in  the  vanity  of  their  dress,  and  no  other  reason 
can  be  given  of  it,  but  that  they  equal,  if  not  surpass,  them  in  the 
vanity  of  their  desires.  So  that  those  who  by  the  majesty,  and  as  I 
may  so  say,  the  prerogative  of  their  age,  should  even  frown  youth 
into  sobriety  and  better  manners,  are  now  striving  all  they  can,  to 
imitate  and  strike  in  with  them,  and  to  be  really  vicious,  that  they 
may  be  thought  to  be  young. 

The  sad  and  apparent  truth  of  which  makes  it  very  superflu- 
ous to  inquire  after  any  further  cause  of  that  monstrous  increase 
of  vice,  that  like  a  torrent,  or  rather  a  breaking  of  the  sea  upon 
us,  has  of  late  years  overflowed,  and  victoriously  carried  away- 
all  before  it.  Both  the  honourable  and  the  aged  have  contributed 
all  they  could  to  the  promotion  of  it ;  and,  so  far  as  they  are  able, 
to  give  the  best  colour  to  the  worst  of  things.  This  they  have 
endeavoured,  and  thus  much  they  have  effected,  that  men  now  see 
that  vice  makes  them  acceptable  to  those  who  are  able  to  make 
them  considerable.  It  is  the  key  that  lets  them  into  their  very  heart, 
and  enables  them  to  command  all  that  is  there.  And  if  this  be  the 
price  of  favour,  and  the  market  of  honour,  no  doubt,  where  the 
trade  is  so  quick,  and  withal  so  certain,  multitudes  will  be  sure  to 
follow  it. 

This  is  too  manifestly  our  present  case.  All  men  see  it ;  and 
wise  and  good  men  lament  it :  and  where  vice,  pushed  on  with 
such  mighty  advantages,  will  stop  its  progress,  it  is  hard  to  judge. 
It  is  certainly  above  all  human  remedies  to  control  the  prevailing 
course  of  it;  unless  the  great  Governor  of  the  world,  who  quells 
the  rage  and  swelling  of  the  sea,  and  sets  bars  and  doors  to  it, 
beyond  which  the  proudest  of  its  waves  cannot  pass,  shall,  in  his 
infinite  compassion  to  us,  do  the  same  to  that  ocean  of  vice, 
which  now  swells  and  roars,  and  lifts  up  itself  above  all  banks 
and  bounds  of  human  laws  ;  and  so,  by  his  omnipotent  word,  re- 
ducing its  power,  and  abasing  its  pride,  shall  at  length  say  to  it, 
"  Hitherto  shalt  thou  come,  and  no  further."  Which  God  in  his 
good  time  effect. 

To  whom  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise, 
might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


303 


SERMON  XIX. 

NATURAL  RELIGION,  WITHOUT  REVELATION,  SUFFICIENT  TO  RENDER 
A    SINNER  INEXCUSABLE. 

[Preached  before  the  University,  at  Christ  Church,  Oxon,  November  2,  1690.] 

Romans  i.  20,  latter  part. 
— So  they  are  without  excuse. 

•  This  excellent  epistle,  though  in  the  front  of  it  it  bears  a  par- 
ticular inscription,  yet,  in  the  drift  and  purpose  of  it,  is  universal : 
as  designing  to  convince  all  mankind,  whom  it  supposes  in  pur- 
suit of  true  happiness,  of  the  necessity  of  seeking  for  it  in  the 
gospel,  and  the  impossibility  of  finding  it  elsewhere.  All  with- 
out the  church,  at  that  time,  were  comprehended  under  the  divi- 
sion of  Jews  and  Gentiles,  called  here  by  the  apostle  Greeks ;  the 
nobler  and  more  noted  part  being  used  for  the  whole.  Accord- 
ingly, from  the  second  chapter,  down  along,  he  addresses  himself 
to  the  Jews,  showing  the  insufficiency  of  their  law  to  justify,  or 
make  them  happy,  how  much  soever  they  doated  upon  it.  But 
here,  in  this  first  chapter,  he  deals  with  the  Greeks,  or  gentiles, 
who  sought  for,  and  promised  themselves  the  same  happiness 
from  the  dictates  of  right  reason,  which  the  Jews  did  from  the 
Mosaic  law.  Where,  after  he  had  taken  an  account  of  what  their 
bare  reason  had  taught  them  in  the  things  of  God,  and  compared 
the  superstructure  with  the  foundation,  their  practice  with  their 
knowledge,  he  finds  them  so  far  from  arriving  at  the  happiness 
which  they  aspired  to  by  this  means,  that  upon  a  full  survey  of 
the  whole  matter,  the  result  of  all  comes  to  this  sad  and  deplor- 
able issue,  that  they  were  sinful  and  miserable,  and  that  without 
excuse.  In  the  words,  taken  with  the  coherence  of  the  precedent 
and  subsequent  verses,  we  have  these  four  things  considerable. 

I.  The  sin  here  followed  upon  a  certain  sort  of  men,  with  this 
so  severe  a  judgment ;  namely,  that  "  knowing  God,  they  did  not 
glorify  him  as  God,"  ver.  22. 

II.  The  persons  guilty  of  this  sin ;  they  were  "  such  as  pro- 
fessed themselves  wise,"  ver.  22. 

III.  The  cause  or  reason  of  their  falling  into  this  sin ;  which 
was  their  "  holding  the  truth  in  unrighteousness,"  ver.  18.  And, 

IV.  And  lastly,  The  judgment,  or  rather  the  state  and  condi- 
tion penally  consequent  upon  these  sinners ;  namely,  "  that  they 
were  without  excuse,"  ver.  20. 

Of  each  of  which  in  their  order.  And  first,  for  the  first 
of  them. 


304 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIX. 


The  sin  here  followed  with  so  severe  a  judgment,  and  so  highly 
aggravated  and  condemned  by  the  apostle,  is,  by  the  united  testi- 
mony of  most  divines  upon  this  place,  the  sin  of  idolatry :  which 
the  apostle  affirms  to  consist  in  this  ;  that  the  gentiles  glorified  not 
Gody  as  God.  Which  general  charge  he  also  draws  forth  into 
particulars :  as,  that  they  "  changed  his  glory  into  the  similitude 
and  images  of  men,  and  beasts,  and  birds where,  by  glory,  he 
means  God's  worship  ;  to  wit,  that  by  which  men  glorify  him, 
and  not  the  essential  glory  of  his  nature ;  it  being  such  a  glory 
as  was  in  men's  power  to  change  and  to  debase ;  and  therefore 
must  needs  consist,  either  in  those  actions,  or  those  means,  which 
they  performed  ,the  divine  worship  by.  I  know  no  place,  from 
which  we  may  more  clearly  gather  what  the  scripture  accounts 
idolatry,  than  from  this  chapter.  From  whence,  that  I  may 
represent  to  you  what  idolatry  is,  and  wherein  one  sort  of  it,  at 
least,  does  consist,  you  may  observe,  that  the  persons  who  are 
here  charged  with  it,  are  positively  affirmed  to  have  known  and 
acknowledged  the  true  God.  For  it  is  said  of  them,  that  they 
knew  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead,  in  this  20th  verse  ;  nay, 
and  they  worshipped  him  too.  From  whence  this  undeniably  and 
invincibly  follows,  that  they  did  not  look  upon  those  images, 
which  they  addressed  to,  as  gods,  nor  as  things  in  which  the 
divine  nature  did  or  could  enclose  itself ;  nor,  consequently,  to 
which  they  gave,  or  ultimately  designed  their  religious  worship. 
This  conclusion  therefore  I  infer,  and  assert ;  that  idolatry  is  not 
only  an  accounting  or  worshipping  that  for  God,  which  is  not 
God,  but  it  is  also  a  worshipping  the  true  God  in  a  way  wholly 
unsuitable  to  his  nature  ;  and  particularly,  by  the  meditation  of 
images  and  corporeal  resemblances  of  him.  This  is  idolatry :  for 
the  persons  here  spoken  of  pretended  to  glorify  the  true  God, 
but  they  did  not  glorify  him  as  God,  and  upon  that  account 
stand  arraigned  for  idolaters.  Common  sense  and  experience 
will  and  must  evince  the  truth  of  this :  for,  can  any  one  imagine, 
that  men  of  reason,  who  had  their  senses  quick,  and  their  wits 
and  discourse  entire,  could  take  that  image  or  statue,  which  they 
fell  down  before,  to  be  a  God  ?  Could  they  think  that  to  be 
infinite  and  immense,  the  ubiquity  of  which  they  could  thrust 
into  a  corner  of  their  closet  ?  Or  could  they  conceive  that  to  be 
eternal,  which  a  few  days  before  they  had  seen  a  log,  or  a  rude 
trunk,  and  perhaps  the  other  piece  of  it  a  joint-stool  in  the  work- 
man's shop  ? 

The  ground  and  reason  of  all  worship  is,  an  opinion  of  power 
and  will  in  the  person  worshipped  to  answer  and  supply  our  desires  ; 
which  he  cannot  possibly  do,  unless  he  first  apprehend  them.  But 
can  any  man,  who  is  master  of  sense  himself,  believe  the  rational 
heathens  so  void  of  it,  as  to  think  that  those  images  could  fulfil 
the  petitions  which  they  could  not  hear,  pity  the  wants  they 
could  not  see,  do  all  things  when  they  could  not  stir  a  hand  or  a 


SINNERS  INEXCUSABLE  FROM  NATURAL  RELIGION  ONLY.  305 

foot?  It  is  impossible  they  should  ;  but  it  is  also  certain  that  thej 
were  idolaters. 

And  therefore  it  is  clear  that  their  idolatry  consisted  in  some- 
thing else,  and  the  history  of  it  would  demonstrate  so  much,  were 
it  proper  to  turn  a  sermon  into  a  history.  So  that  we  see  here, 
that  the  sin  condemned  in  the  text,  was  the  worshipping  of  the 
true  God  by  images.  For  the  defence  of  which,  there  is  no 
doubt  but  they  might  have  pleaded,  and  did  plead,  for  those 
images,  that  they  used  them  not  as  objects,  but  only  as  means 
and  instruments  of  divine  worship,  not  as  what  they  worshipped, 
but  as  that  by  which  they  directed  their  worship  to  God. 
Though  still,  methinks  it  is  something  hard  to  conceive,  that 
none  of  the  worship  should  fall  upon  the  image  by  the  way, 
or  that  the  water  can  be  conveyed  into  the  sea  without  so  much 
as  wetting  the  channel  through  which  it  passes.  But  however 
you  see  it  requires  a  very  distinguishing  head,  and  even  hand, 
and  no  small  skill  in  directing  the  intention,  to  carry  a  prayer 
quite  through  to  its  journey's  end.  Though,  after  all,  the  mis- 
chief of  it  is,  that  the  distinction  which  looks  so  fine  in  the 
theory,  generally  miscarries  in  the  practice  ;  especially  where  the 
ignorant  vulgar  are  the  practisers,  who  are  the  worst  in  the 
world  at  distinguishing,  but  yet  make  far  the  greatest  part  of 
mankind,  and  are  as  much  concerned  and  obliged  to  pray,  as  the 
wisest  and  the  best;  but  withal,  infinitely  unhappy,  if  they  can- 
not perform  a  necessary  duty  without  school  distinctions,  nor  beg 
their  daily  bread  without  metaphysics.  And  thus  much  for  the  first 
thing  proposed  ;  namely,  the  sin  here  spoken  against  by  the  apostle 
in  the  text,  which  was  idolatry. 

II.  The  second  is  the  persons  charged  with  this  sin.  And 
they  were  not  the  Gnostics,  as  some  whimsically  imagine,  who 
can  never  meet  with  the  words  yiv^oxovas,  yivJxsxiiv,  yvwcnj,  or 
yvuaroi,  but  presently  the  Gnostics  must  be  drawn  in  by  the 
head  and  shoulders ;  but  the  persons  here  meant,  were  plainly 
and  manifestly  the  old  heathen  philosophers ;  such  as  not  only  in 
the  apostle's  but  also  in  their  own  phrase,  "  professed  themselves 
to  be  wise."  Their  great  title  was  oo^ot,  and  the  word  of 
applause  still  given  to  their  lectures,  was  ao^f.  And  Pythagoras 
was  the  first  who  abated  of  the  invidiousness  of  the  name,  and 
from  co$6s,  brought  it  down  to  t^b-jo^o;,  from  a  master  to  a  lover 
of  wisdom,  from  a  professor  to  a  candidate. 

These  were  the  men  here  intended  by  St.  Paul ;  men  famous 
in  their  respective  ages;  the  great  favourites  of  nature,  and  the 
top  and  masterpiece  of  art ;  men  whose  aspiring  intellectuals  had 
raised  them  above  the  common  level,  and  made  them  higher  by 
the  head  than  the  world  round  about  them.  Men  of  a  polite 
reason,  and  a  notion  refined  and  enlarged  by  meditation.  Such, 
as  with  all  these  advantages  of  parts  and  studv,  had  been  toiling 

Vol.  I.— 39  2  c  2 


306 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIX. 


and  plodding  many  years,  to  outwit  and  deceive  themselves ;  sat 
up  many  nights,  and  spent  many  days,  to  impose  a  fallacy  upon 
their  reason ;  and,  in  a  word,  ran  the  round  of  all  the  arts  and 
sciences,  to  arrive  at  length  at  a  glorious  and  elaborate  folly ; 
even  these,  I  say,  these  grandees  and  giants  in  knowledge,  who 
thus  looked  down,  as  it  were,  upon  the  rest  of  mankind,  and 
laughed  at  all  besides  themselves,  as  barbarous  and  insignificant, 
— as  quick  and  sagacious  as  they  were,  to  look  into  the  little  in- 
tricacies of  matter  and  motion,  which  a  man  might  salva  scientia, 
or  at  least,  salva  anima,  ignorare,  yet  blundered  and  stumbled 
about  their  grand  and  principal  concern,  the  knowledge  of  their 
duty  to  God,  sinking  into  the  meanest  and  most  ridiculous 
instances  of  idolatry ;  even  so  far  as  to  worship  the  great  God 
under  the  form  of  beasts  and  creeping  things  to  adore  eternity 
and  immensity  in  a  brute,  or  a  plant,  or  some  viler  thing ;  bow- 
ing down  in  their  adoration  to  such  things,  as  they  would  scarce 
otherwise  have  bowed  down  to  take  up :  nay,  and  to  rear  tem- 
ples and  make  altars  to  fear,  lust,  and  revenge;  there  being 
scarce  a  corrupt  passion  of  the  mind,  or  a  distemper  of  the  body, 
but  what  they  worshipped.  So  that  it  could  not  be  expected, 
that  they  should  ever  repent  of  those  sins  which  they  thought  fit 
to  deify,  nor  mortify  those  corrupt  affections  to  which  they 
ascribed  a  kind  of  divinity  and  immortality.  By  all  which  they 
fell  into  a  greater  absurdity  in  matter  of  practice,  than  ever 
any  one  of  them  did  in  point  of  opinion,  (which  yet  certainly 
was  very  hard),  namely,  that  having  confessed  a  God,  and 
allowed  him  the  perfections  of  a  God,  to  wit,  an  infinite  power 
and  an  eternal  Godhead,  they  yet  denied  him  the  worship  of 
God.  Thus  reversing  the  great  truths  they  had  subscribed  to  in 
speculation,  by  a  brutish,  senseless  devotion,  managed  with  a 
greater  prostration  of  reason  than  of  body. 

Had  the  poor  vulgar  rout  only,  who  were  held  under  the  pre- 
judices and  prepossessions  of  education,  been  abused  into  such 
idolatrous  superstitions,  as  to  adore  a  marble  or  a  golden  deity,  it 
might  have  been  detested  indeed,  or  pitied,  but  not  so  much  to 
be  wondered  at :  but  for  the  stoa,  the  academy,  or  the  peripaton 
to  own  such  a  paradox;  for  an  Aristotle,  or  a  Plato,  to  think 
their  No£$  di5to$,  their  Eternal  Mind,  or  Universal  Spirit,  to  be 
found  in,  or  severed  by  the  images  of  four-footed  beasts ;  for  the 
Stagirite  to  recognize  his  gods  in  his  own  book  de  Animalibus ; 
this,  as  the  apostle  says,  was  "  without  excuse,"  and  how  will  these 
men  answer  for  their  sins,  who  stand  thus  condemned  for  their  de- 
votions? And  thus  from  the  persons  here  charged  by  the  apostles 
witfa  the  sin  of  idolatry,  pass  we  now  to  the 

III.  Thing  proposed  ;  namely,  The  cause  or  reason  of  their  falling 
into  this  sin  ;  and  that  was  tlieir  holding  the  truth  in  unrighteousness. 
For  the  making  out  of  which,  we  must  inquire  into  these  two  things. 


SINNERS  INEXCUSABLE  FROM  NATURAL  RELIGION  ONLY.  307 

1.  What  was  the  truth  here  spoken  of. 

2.  How  they  held  it  in  unrighteousness. 

For  the  first  of  them :  there  were  these  six  great  truths,  the 
knowledge  of  which  the  Gentile  philosophers  stood  accountable 
for  :  as, 

1.  That  there  was  a  God;  a  being  distinct  from  this  visible, 
material  world  ;  infinitely  perfect,  omniscient,  omnipotent,  eternal, 
transcendently  good  and  holy :  for  all  this  is  included  in  the  very 
notion  of  a  God.  And  this  was  a  truth  written  with  a  sunbeam, 
clear  and  legible  to  all  mankind,  and  received  by  universal 
consent. 

2.  That  this  God  was  the  maker  and  governor  of  this  visible 
world.  The  first  of  which  was  evident  from  the  very  order  of 
causes :  the  great  argument  by  which  natural  reason  evinces  a 
God.  It  being  necessary  in  such  an  order  or  chain  of  causes,  to 
ascend  to,  and  terminate  in  some  first ;  which  should  be  the 
original  of  motion,  and  the  cause  of  all  other  things,  but  itself  be 
caused  by  none.  And  then,  that  God  also  governed  the  world, 
this  followed  from  the  other  ;  for  that  a  creature  should  not 
depend  upon  its  creator  in  all  respects,  in  which  it  is  capable  of 
depending  upon  him  (amongst  which,  to  be  governed  by  him  is 
certainly  one),  is  contrary  to  the  common  order  and  nature  of 
things,  and  those  essential  relations  which,  by  virtue  thereof, 
they  bear  to  one  another ;  and  consequently  absurd  and  impos- 
sible. So  that  upon  a  bare  principle  of  reason,  creation  must 
needs  infer  providence  ;  and  God's  making  the  world,  irrefragably 
proves  that  he  governs  it  too  ;  or  that  a  Being  of  a  dependent 
nature  remains  nevertheless  independent  upon  him  in  that  respect. 
Besides  all  which,  it  is  also  certain,  that  the  heathens  did 
actually  acknowledge  the  world  governed  by  a  Supreme  Mind  ; 
which  knowledge,  whether  they  had  it  from  tradition  or  the  dis- 
courses of  reason,  they  stood  however  equally  acountable  for  upon 
either  account. 

3.  That  this  God,  or  Supreme  Being,  was  to.be  worshipped. 
For  this  was  founded  upon  his  omnipotence  and  his  providence. 
Since  he,  who  could  preserve  or  destroy  as  he  pleased,  and  withal 
governed  the  world,  ought  surely  to  be  depended  upon  by  those 
who  were  thus  obnoxious  to  his  power,  and  subject  to  his  govern- 
ment ;  which  dependence  could  not  manifest  itself  but  by  acts  of 
worship,  homage,  and  address  to  the  person  thus  depended  upon. 

4.  That  this  God  was  to  be  worshipped,  or  addressed  to,  by 
virtuous  and  pious  practices.  For  so  much  his  essential  holiness 
required,  and  those  innate  notions  of  turpe  et  honestam,  written 
in  the  consciences  of  all  men,  and  joined  with  the  apprehensions 
they  had  of  the  infinite  purity  of  the  divine  nature,  could  not  but 
suggest. 

5.  That  upon  any  deviation  from  virtue  and  piety,  it  was 
the  duty  of  every  rational  creature  so  deviating  to  condemn, 


308 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIX. 


renounce  and  be  sorry  for  every  such  deviation :  that  is,  in  other 
words,  to  repent  of  it.  What  indeed  the  issue  or  effect  of  such  a 
repentance  might  be,  bare  reason  could  not  of  itself  discover  ;  but 
that  a  peccant  creature  should  disapprove  and  repent  of  every 
violation  of,  and  declination  from  the  rules  of  just  and  honest, 
this,  right  reason,  discoursing  upon  the  stock  of  its  own  princi- 
ples, could  not  but  infer.  And  the  conscience  of  every  man, 
before  it  is  debauched  and  hardened  by  habitual  sin,  will  recoil 
after  the  doing  of  an  evil  action,  and  acquit  him  after  a  good. 

6.  And  lastly,  That  every  such  deviation  from  duty  rendered 
the  person  so  deviating  liable  and  obnoxious  to  punishment.  I 
do  not  say,  that  it  made  punishment  necessary,  but  that  it  made 
the  person  so  transgressing  worthy  of  it:  so  that  it  might  justly  be 
inflicted  on  him,  and  consequently  ought  rationally  to  be  feared 
and  expected  by  him.  And  upon  this  notion,  universally  fixed  in 
the  minds  of  men,  were  grounded  all  their  sacrifices,  and  rites  of 
expiation  and  lustration.  The  use  of  which  has  been  so  general, 
both  as  to  times  and  places,  that  there  is  no  age  or  nation  of  the 
world  in  which  they  have  not  been  used  as  principal  parts  of 
religious  worship. 

Now  these  six  grand  truths  were  the  talent  entrusted  and  de- 
posited by  God  in  the  hands  of  the  Gentiles  for  them  to  traffic 
with,  to  his  honour  and  their  own  happiness.  But  what  little  im- 
provement they  made  of  this  noble  talent,  shall  now  be  shown  in 
the  next  particular  :  namely,  the  holding  of  it  in  unrighteousness  : 
which  they  did  several  ways.  As, 

1.  By  not  acting  up  to  what  they  knew.  As  in  many  things 
their  knowledge  was  short  of  the  truth,  so  almost  in  all  things, 
their  practice  fell  short  of  their  knowledge.  The  principles  by 
which  they  walked,  were  as  much  below  those  by  which  they 
judged,  as  their  feet  were  below  their  head.  By  the  one  they 
looked  upwards,  while  they  placed  the  other  in  the  dirt.  Their 
writings  sufficiently  show  what  raised  and  sublime  notions  they 
had  of  the  divine  nature,  while  they  employed  their  reason  about 
that  glorious  object,  and  what  excellent  discourses  of  virtue  and 
morality  the  same  reason  enabled  them  to  furnish  the  world  with. 
But  when  they  came  to  transcribe  these  theories  into  practice, 
one  seemed  to  be  of  no  other  use  to  them  all,  but  only  to  re- 
proach them  for  the  other.  For  they  neither  depended  upon  this 
God  as  if  he  were  almighty,  nor  worshipped  him  as  if  they  be- 
lieved him  holy ;  but  in  both  prevaricated  with  their  own  princi- 
ples to  that  degree,  that  their  practice  was  a  direct  contradiction 
to  their  speculations.  For  the  proof  of  which,  go  over  all  the 
heathen  temples,  and  take  a  survey  of  the  absurdities  and  impie- 
ties of  their  worship,  their  monstrous  sacrifices,  their  ridiculous 
rites  and  ceremonies.  In  all  which,  common  sense  and  reason 
could  not  but  tell  them,  that  the  g9od  and  gracious  God  could 
not  be  pleased,  nor  consequently  worshipped,  with  any  thing  bar- 


SINNERS  INEXCUSABLE  FROM  NATURAL  RELIGION  ONLY.  309 

barons  or  cruel ;  nor  the  most  holy  God  with  any  thing  filthy  and 
unclean  ;  nor  a  God  infinitely  wise  with  any  thing  sottish  or 
ridiculous  ;  and  yet  these  were  the  worthy  qualifications  of  the 
heathen  worship,  even  amongst  their  greatest  and  most  reputed 
philosophers. 

And  then,  for  the  duties  of  morality;  surely  they  never 
wanted  so  much  knowledge  as  to  inform  and  convince  them  of 
the  unlawfulness  of  a  man's  being  a  murderer,  a  hater  of  God, 
a  covenant-breaker,  without  natural  affection,  implacable,  un- 
merciful. These  were  enormities  branded  and  condemned  by 
the  first  and  most  natural  verdict  of  common  humanity;  and  so 
very  gross  and  foul,  that  no  man  could  pretend  ignorance  that 
they  ought  to  be  avoided  by  him.  And  yet  the  apostle  tells  us 
in  the  last  verse  of  this  chapter,  that  they  practised  so  much  short 
of  their  knowledge,  even  as  to  these  particulars,  that  u  though 
they  knew  the  judgment  of  God,  that  those  who  committed  such 
things  were  worthy  of  death  ;  yet  not  only  did  the  same  them- 
selves, but  also  had  pleasure  in  those  that  did  them."  Which  cer- 
tainly is  the  greatest  demonstration  of  a  mind  wholly  possessed 
and  even  besotted  with  the  love  of  vice,  that  can  possibly  be  im- 
agined. So  notoriously  did  these  wretches  balk  the  judgment  of 
their  consciences,  even  in  the  plainest  and  most  undeniable  duties 
relating  to  God,  their  neighbour,  and  themselves ;  as  if  they  had 
owned  neither  God  nor  neighbour,  but  themselves. 

2.  These  men  held  the  truth  in  unrighteousness,  by  not  im- 
proving those  known  principles  into  the  proper  consequences  de- 
ducible  from  them.  For  surely,  had  they  discoursed  rightly  but 
upon  this  one  principle,  that  God  was  a  being  infinitely  perfect, 
they  could  never  have  been  brought  to  assert  or  own  a  multipli- 
city of  gods.  For  can  one  god  include  in  him  all  perfection, 
and  another  god  include  in  him  all  perfection  too  ?  Can  there  be 
any  more  than  all  ?  and  if  this  all  be  in  one,  can  it  be  also  in 
another  ?  Or,  if  they  allot  and  parcel  out  several  perfections  to 
several  deities,  do  they  not,  by  this,  assert  contradictions,  making 
a  deity  only  to  such  a  measure  perfect :  whereas  a  deity,  as  such, 
implies  perfection  beyond  all  measure  or  limitation  ?  Nor  could 
they,  in  the  next  place,  have  slid  into  those  brutish  immoralities 
of  life,  had  they  duly  manured  those  first  practical  notions  and 
dictates  of  right  reason  which  the  nature  of  man  is  originally 
furnished  with ;  there  being  not  any  one  of  them,  but  what  is 
naturally  productive  of  many  more.  But  they  quickly  stifled 
and  overlaid  those  infant  principles,  those  seeds  of  piety  and 
virtue,  sown  by  God  and  nature  in  their  own  hearts ;  so  that  they 
brought  a  voluntary  darkness  and  stupidity  upon  their  minds : 
and,  by  not  "  exercising  their  senses  to  discern  between  good  and 
evil,"  came  at  length  to  lose  all  sense  and  discernment  of  either. 
Whereupon,  as  the  apostle  says  of  them  in  the  21st  verse  of  this 
chapter  to  the   Romans,  "their  foolish  heart  was  darkened;" 


310 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIX. 


and  that  not  only  by  the  just  judgment  of  God,  but  also  by  the 
very  course  of  nature ;  nothing  being  more  evident  from  ex- 
perience, than  that  the  not  using  or  employing  any  faculty  or 
power,  either  of  body  or  soul,  does  insensibly  weaken  and  impair 
that  faculty ;  as  a  sword  by  long  lying  still  will  contract  a  rust, 
which  shall  not  only  deface  its  brightness,  but  by  degrees  also 
consume  its  very  substance.  Doing  nothing  naturally  ends  in  being 
nothing. 

It  holds  in  all  operative  principles  whatsoever,  but  especially 
in  such  as  relate  to  morality ;  in  which  not  to  proceed  is  certainly 
to  go  backward ;  there  being  no  third  estate  between  not  advancing 
and  retreating  in  a  virtuous  course.  Growth  is  of  the  very  essence 
and  nature  of  some  things.  To  be,  and  to  thrive,  is  all  one  with 
wTith  them ;  and  they  know  no  middle  season  between  their  spring 
and  their  fall. 

And  therefore,  as  it  is  said  in  Matt.  xiii.  12,  that  "from  him 
who  hath  not,  shall  be  taken  away  even  that  which  he  hath:"  so 
he  who  neglects  the  practice,  shall,  in  the  end  also,  lose  the 
very  power  and  faculty  of  doing  well.  That  which  stops  a  man's 
actual  breathing  very  long,  will,  in  the  issue,  take  away  his  very 
power  of  breathing  too.  To  hide  one's  talent  in  the  ground  is  to 
bury  it;  and  the  burial  of  a  thing  either  finds  it  dead,  or  will 
quickly  make  it  so. 

3.  These  men  held  the  truth  in  unrighteousness,  by  conceal- 
ing what  they  knew.  For  how  rightly  soever  they  might  con- 
ceive of  God  and  of  virtue,  yet  the  illiterate  multitude,  who  in 
such  things  must  see  with  better  eyes  than  their  own,  or  see  not 
at  all,  were  never  the  wiser  for  it.  Whatsoever  the  inward  senti- 
ments of  those  sophisters  were,  they  kept  them  wholly  to  them- 
selves ;  hiding  all  those  important  truths,  all  those  useful  notions 
from  the  people,  and  teaching  the  world  much  otherwise  from 
what  they  judged  themselves.  Though  I  think  a  greater  truth 
than  this  cannot  well  be  uttered ;  that  never  any  thing  or  person 
was  really  good,  which  was  good  only  to  itself.  But  from  hence 
it  was,  that,  even  in  a  literal  sense,  sin  came  to  be  established  by 
a  law.  For  amongst  the  Gentiles,  the  laws  themselves  were  the 
greatest  offenders.  They  made  little  or  no  provision  for  virtue, 
but  very  much  for  vice.  For  the  early  and  universal  practice  of 
sin  had  turned  it  into  a  custom,  and  custom,  especially  in  sin, 
quickly  passed  into  common  law. 

Socrates  was  the  only  martyr  for  the  testimony  of  any  truth  that 
we  read  of  amongst  the  heathens ;  who  chose  rather  to  be  con- 
demned, and  to  die,  than  either  to  renounce  or  conceal  his  judg- 
ment touching  the  unity  of  the  Godhead.  But  as  for  the  rest  of 
them,  even  Zeno  and  Chrysippus,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  and  gene- 
rally all  those  heroes  in  philosophy,  they  swam  with  the  stream, 
as  foul  as  it  ran,  leaving  the  poor  vulgar  as  ignorant  and  sottish,  as 
vicious  and  idolatrous,  as  they  first  found  them. 


SINNERS  INEXCUSABLE  FROM  NATURAL  RELIGION  ONLY.  311 

But  it  has  been  always  the  practice  of  the  governing  cheats  of 
all  religions,  to  keep  the  people  in  as  gross  ignorance  as  possibly 
they  could ;  for  we  see  the  heathen  impostors  used  it  before  the 
Christian  impostors  took  it  up  and  improved  it.  Si  populus 
decipi  vult,  decipiatur,  was  ever  a  gold  and  silver  rule  amongst 
them  all ;  though  the  pope's  legate  first  turned  it  into  a  benedic- 
tion :  and  a  very  strange  one  it  was,  and  enough,  one  would  think, 
to  have  made  all  that  heard  it  look  about  them,  and  begin  to  bless 
themselves.  For  as  Demetrius,  a  great  master  in  such  arts,  told 
his  fellow  artists,  Acts  xix.  25,  "  it  was  by  this  craft  that  they  got 
their  wealth:"  so,  long  experience  has  found  it  true  of  the  un- 
thinking mobile,  that  the  closer  they  shut  their  eyes,  the  wider 
they  open  their  hands.  But  this  base  trade  the  church  of  England 
always  abhorred  ;  and  for  that  cause  as  to  its  temporal  advantages, 
has  fared  accordingly ;  and,  by  this  time,  may  be  thought  fit  for 
another  reformation. 

And  thus  I  have  shown  three  notable  ways,  by  which  the 
philosophers  and  learned  men  amongst  the  Gentiles  held  the 
truth  in  unrighteousness :  as  1st,  That  they  did  not  practise  up 
to  it ;  2dly,  That  they  did  not  improve  it ;  and  3dly,  and  lastly, 
That  they  concealed  and  dissembled  it.  And  this  was  that 
which  prepared  and  disposed  them  to  greater  enormities  :  for, 
"  changing  the  truth  of  God  into  a  lie,"  they  became  like  those, 
who,  by  often  repeating  a  lie  to  others,  come  at  length  to  believe 
it  themselves.  They  owned  the  idolatrous  worship  of  God  so 
long,  till  by  degrees,  even  in  spite  of  reason  and  nature,  they 
thought  that  he  ought  so  to  be  worshipped.  But  this  stopped 
not  here:  for,  as  one  wickedness  is  naturally  a  step  and  intro- 
duction to  another ;  so,  from  absurd  and  senseless  devotions,  they 
passed  into  vile  affections,  practising  vices  against  nature,  and 
that  in  such  strange  and  abominable  instances  of  sin,  that  nothing 
could  equal  the  corruption  of  their  manners,  but  the  delusion  of 
their  judgments  ;  both  of  them  the  true  and  proper  causes  of 
one  another. 

The  consideration  of  which,  one  would  think,  should  make 
men  cautious  and  fearful,  how  they  suppress  or  debauch  that  spark 
of  natural  light  which  God  has  set  up  in  their  souls.  When 
nature  is  in  the  dark,  it  will  venture  to  do  any  thing.  And  God 
knows  how  far  the  spirit  of  infatuation  may  prevail  upon  the 
heart,  when  it  comes  once  to  court  and  love  a  delusion.  Some 
men  hug  an  error  because  it  gratifies  them  in  a  freer  enjoyment 
of  their  sensuality :  and  for  that  reason,  God  in  judgment  suffers 
them  to  be  plunged  into  fouler  and  grosser  errors  ;  such  as  even 
unman  and  strip  them  of  the  very  principles  of  reason  and  sober 
discourse.  For  surely,  it  could  be  no  ordinary  declension  of 
nature  that  could  bring  some  men  after  an  ingenious  education 
in  arts  and  philosophy,  to  place  their  summum  bonum  upon  their 
trenchers,  and   their  utmost  felicity  in   wine  and  women,  and 


312 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIX. 


those  lusts  and  pleasures,  which  a  swine  or  a  goat  has  as  full  and 
quick  a  sense  of,  as  the  greatest  statesman  or  the  best  philosopher 
in  the  world. 

Yet  this  was  the  custom,  this  the  known  voice  of  most  of  the 
Gentiles  :  Dum  vivimus  vivamus  ;  "  Let  us  eat  and  drink  to-day, 
for  to-morrow  we  must  die."  That  soul  which  God  had  given 
them  comprehensive  of  both  worlds,  and  capable  of  looking  into 
the  great  mysteries  of  nature,  of  diving  into  the  depths  beneath, 
and  of  understanding  the  motions  and  influences  of  the  stars 
above  ;  even  this  glorious  active  thing  did  they  confine  within 
the  pitiful  compass  of  the  present  fruition  ;  forbidding  it  to  take  a 
prospect  so  far  as  into  the  morrow  ;  as  if  to  think,  to  contemplate, 
or  be  serious,  had  been  high  treason  against  the  empire  and 
prerogative  of  sense,  usurping  the  throne  of  their  baffled  and 
deposed  reason. 

And  how  comes  it  to  pass,  that  even  now-a-days  there  is  often 
seen  such  a  vast  difference  between  the  former  and  the  latter  part 
of  some  men's  lives  ?  that  those,  who  first  stepped  forth  into  the 
world  with  high  and  promising  abilities,  vigorous  intellectuals,  and 
clear  morals,  come  at  length  to  become  sots  and  epicures,  mean  in 
their  discourses,  and  dirty  in  their  practices  ;  but  that,  as  by  de- 
grees, they  remitted  of  their  industry,  loathed  their  business,  and 
gave  way  to  their  pleasures,  they  let  fall  those  generous  principles 
which  in  their  youthful  days  had  borne  them  upon  the  wing,  and 
raised  them  to  worthy  and  great  thoughts  ;  which  thoughts  and 
principles  not  being  kept  up  and  cherished,  but  smothered  in 
sensual  delights,  God  for  that  cause  suffered  them  to  flag  and  sink 
into  low  and  inglorious  satisfaction,  and  to  enjoy  themselves  more 
in  a  revel  or  a  merry-meeting,  a  strumpet  or  a  tavern,  than  in 
being  useful  to  a  church  or  a  nation,  in  being  a  public  good  to 
society,  and  a  benefit  to  mankind.  The  parts  that  God  gave 
them,  they  held  in  unrighteousness,  sloth,  and  sensuality ;  and  this 
made  God  to  desert  and  abandon  them  to  themselves  :  so  that 
they  have  had  a  doating  and  a  decrepit  reason,  long  before  age  had 
given  them  such  a  body. 

And  therefore  I  could  heartily  wish,  that  such  young  persons 
as  hear  me  now,  would  lodge  this  one  observation  deep  in  their 
minds,  viz.  that  God  and  nature  have  joined  wisdom  and  virtue 
by  such  a  near  cognation,  or  rather  such  an  inseparable  connexion, 
that  a  wise,  a  prudent,  and  an  honourable  old  age,  is  seldom  or 
never  found,  but  as  the  reward  and  effect  of  a  sober,  a  virtuous, 
and  a  well  spent  youth. 

IV.  I  descend  now  to  the  fourth  and  last  thing  proposed  ; 
namely,  the  judgment,  or  rather  the  state  and  condition  penally 
consequent  upon  the  persons  here  charged  by  the  apostle  with 
idolatry  :  which  is  that  they  were  without  excuse. 

After  the  commission  of  sin,  it   is  natural  for  the  sinner  to 


SINNERS  INEXCUSABLTE  FROM  NATURAL  RELIGION  ONLY.  313 

apprehend  himself  in  danger,  and,  upon  such  apprehension,  to 
provide  for  his  safety  and  defence :  and  that  must  be  one  of  these 
two  ways ;  viz.  either  by  pleading  his  innocence,  or  by  using  his 
power.  But  since  it  would  be  infinitely  in  vain  for  a  finite  power 
to  contend  with  an  infinite ;  innocence,  if  any  thing,  must  be  his 
plea :  and  that  must  be  either  by  an  absolute  denial,  or  at  least 
by  an  extenuation  or  diminution  of  his  sin.  Though  indeed  this 
course  will  be  found  altogether  as  absurd  as  the  other  could  be ; 
it  being  ever}-  whit  as  irrational  for  a  sinner  to  plead  his  inno- 
cence before  Omniscience,  as  it  would  be  to  oppose  his  power  to 
Omnipotence.  However,  the  last  refuge  of  a  guilty  person,  is  to 
take  refuge  under  an  excuse,  and  so  to  mitigate,  if  he  cannot 
divert  the  blow.  It  was  the  method  of  the  great  pattern  and 
parent  of  all  sinners,  Adam,  first  to  hide,  and  then  to  excuse 
himself;  to  wrap  the  apple  in  the  leaves,  and  to  give  his  case  a 
gloss  at  least,  though  not  a  defence.  But  now,  when  the  sinner 
shall  be  stripped  of  this  also,  have  all  his  excuses  blown  away,  be 
stabbed  with  his  own  arguments,  and,  as  it  were,  sacrificed  upon 
that  very  altar  which  he  fled  to  for  succour;  this,  surely,  is  the 
height  and  crisis  of  a  forlorn  condition.  Yet  this  was  the  case  of 
the  malefactors  who  stand  here  arraigned  in  the  text ;  this  was  the 
consummation  of  their  doom,  that  they  were  persons,  not  only  unfit 
for  a  pardon,  but  even  for  a  plea. 

Now  an  excuse,  in  the  nature  of  it,  imports  these  two  things  :  1. 
The  supposition  of  a  sin.    2.  The  extenuation  of  its  guilt. 

As  for  the  sin  itself,  we  have  already  heard  what  that  was,  and 
we  will  now  see  how  able  they  are  to  acquit  themselves  in  point  of 
its  extenuation.  In  which  according  to  the  two  grand  principles 
of  human  actions  which  determine  their  morality,  the  understanding 
and  the  will,  the  excuse  must  derive  either  from  ignorance  or  un- 
willingness. 

As  for  unwillingness  (to  speak  of  this  last  first),  the  heathen 
philosophers  generally  asserted  the  freedom  of  the  will,  and  its  in- 
violable dominion  over  its  own  actions ;  so  that  no  force  or  coac- 
tion  from  without  could  entrench  upon  the  absolute  empire  of  this 
faculty. 

It  must  be  confessed  indeed,  that  it  has  been  something  lamed 
in  this  its  freedom  by  original  sin ;  of  which  defect  the  heathens 
themselves  were  not  wholly  ignorant,  though  they  were  of  its  cause. 
So  that  hereupon,  the  will  is  not  able  to  carry  a  man  out  to  a  choice 
so  perfectly  and  in  all  respects  good,  but  that  still  there  is  some  ad- 
herent circumstance  of  imperfection,  which  in  strictness  of  morality, 
renders  every  action  of  it  evil ;  according  to  that  known  and  most 
true  rule,  Malum  ex  quolibet  defectv. 

Nevertheless,  the  will  has  still  so  much  freedom  left,  as  to 
enable  it  to  choose  any  act  in  its  kind  good,  whether  it  be  an  act 
of  temperance,  justice,  or  the  like :  as  also  to  refuse  any  act  in  its 
kind  evil,  whether  of  intemperance,  injustice,  or  the  like:  though 

Vol.  I. — 40  2  D 


314 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIX. 


yet  it  neither  chooses  one,  nor  refuses  the  other,  with  such  a  per- 
fect concurrence  of  all  due  ingredients  of  action,  but  that  still  in 
the  sight  of  God,  judging  according  to  the  rigid  measures  of  the 
law,  every  such  choice  or  refusal  is  indeed  sinful  and  imperfect. 
This  is  most  certain,  whatsoever  Pelagius  and  his  brethren  assert  to 
the  contrary. 

But  however,  that  measure  of  freedom  which  the  will  still  re- 
tains, of  being  able  to  choose  any  act,  materially,  and  in  its  kind 
good,  and  to  refuse  the  contrary,  was  enough  to  cut  off  all  excuse 
from  the  heathen,  who  never  duly  improved  the  utmost  of  such 
a  power,  but  gave  themselves  up  to  all  the  filthiness  and  licen- 
tiousness of  life  imaginable.  In  all  which  it  is  certain,  that 
they  acted  willingly,  and  without  compulsion;  or  rather  indeed 
greedily,  and  without  control. 

The  only  persons  amongst  the  heathens  who  sophisticated 
nature  and  philosophy  in  this  particular,  were  the  stoics  ;  who  af- 
firmed a  fatal,  unchangeable  concatenation  of  causes,  reaching 
even  to  the  elicit  acts  of  a  man's  will ;  so  that,  according  to  them, 
there  was  no  act  of  volition  exerted  by  it ;  but  all  circumstances 
considered,  it  was  impossible  for  the  will  not  to  exert  that  voli- 
tion. Yet  these  were  but  one  sect  of  philosophers  ;  that  is,  but  a 
handful  in  comparison  of  the  rest  of  the  gentiles :  ridiculous 
enough  for  what  they  held  and  taught,  and  consequently  not  to 
be  laid  in  the  balance  with  the  united  judgment  of  all  other 
learned  men  in  the  world,  unanimously  exploding  this  opinion. 
Questionless  therefore,  a  thing  so  deeply  engraven  upon  the  first 
and  most  inward  notions  of  man's  mind,  as  a  persuasion  of  the 
will's  freedom,  would  never  permit  the  heathens  who  are  here 
charged  by  the  apostle,  to  patronize  and  excuse  their  sins  upon  this 
score,  that  they  committed  them  against  their  will,  and  that  they 
had  no  power  to  do  otherwise.  In  which,  every  hour's  experience, 
and  reflection  upon  the  method  of  their  own  actings,  could  not  but 
give  them  the  lie  to  their  face. 

The  only  remaining  plea  therefore,  which  these  men  can  take 
sanctuary  in,  must  be  that  of  ignorance ;  since  there  could  be  no 
pretence  for  unwillingness.  But  the  apostle  divests  them  even  of 
this  also:  for  he  says  expressly,  in  ver.  19,  that  "  what  might  be 
known  of  God,"  that  famous  and  so  much  disputed  of  to  yv^stbv 
tov  @soi  was  "manifested  in  them;"  and  in  ver.  21,  their  inex- 
cusableness  is  stated  upon  the  supposition  of  this  very  thing,  "  that 
they  knew  God,"  but  for  all  that,  "  did  not  glorify  him  as  God." 
This  was  the  sum  of  their  charge ;  and  how  it  has  been  made  good 
against  them,  we  have  already  shown,  in  what  we  have  spoken 
about  their  idolatry,  very  briefly,  I  confess ;  but  enough  to  show  its 
absurdity,  though  not  to  account  for  its  variety,  when  Vossius's  very 
abridgement  of  it  makes  a  thick  volume  in  folio. 

The  plea  of  ignorance  therefore  is  also  taken  out  of  their  hands ; 
forasmuch  as  they  knew  that  there  was  a  God,  and  that  this  God 


SINNERS  INEXCUSABLE  FROM  NATURAL  RELIGION  ONLY.  315 

made  and  governed  the  world  ;  and  upon  that  account  was  to  be 
worshipped  and  addressed  to,  and  that  with  such  a  worship  as 
should  be  agreeable  to  his  nature  ;  both  in  respect  of  the  piety 
and  virtue  of  the  worshipper,  and  also  of  the  means  of  the  wor« 
ship  itself.  So  that  he  was  neither  to  be  worshipped  with  im- 
pious and  immoral  practices,  nor  with  corporeal  resemblances. 
For  how  could  an  image  help  men  in  directing  their  thoughts  to  a 
being,  which  bore  no  similitude  or  cognation  to  that  image  at  all  ? 
And  what  resemblance  could  wood  or  stone  bear  to  a  spirit  void 
of  all  sensible  qualities  and  bodily  dimensions?  How  could  they 
put  men  in  mind  of  infinite  power,  wisdom,  and  holiness,  and 
such  other  attributes,  of  which  they  had  not  the  least  mark  or 
character  ? 

But  now,  if  these  things  could  not  possibly  resemble  any  per- 
fection of  the  Deity,  what  use  could  they  be  of  to  men  in  their 
addresses  to  God  ?  For  can  a  man's  devotions  be  helped  by  that 
which  brings  an  error  upon  his  thoughts  ?  And  certain  it  is,  that 
it  is  natural  for  a  man,  by  directing  his  prayers  to  an  image,  to 
suppose  the  being  he  prays  to  represented  by  that  image.  Which 
how  injurious,  how  contumelious  it  must  needs  be  to  the  glorious 
incomprehensible  nature  of  God,  by  begetting  such  false  and  low 
apprehensions  of  him  in  the  minds  of  his  creatures,  let  common 
sense,  not  perverted  by  interest  and  design,  be  judge.  From  all 
which  it  follows,  that  the  idolatrous  heathens,  and  especially  the 
most  learned  of  them,  not  being  able  to  charge  their  idolatry 
either  upon  ignorance  or  unwillingness,  were  wholly  "  without 
excuse."  So  that  it  is  to  be  feared,  that  Averroes  had  not  the 
right  way  of  blessing  himself,  when,  in  defiance  of  Christianity,, 
he  wished,  sit  anima  mea  cum  philosophis. 

And  now,  after  all,  I  cannot  but  take  notice,  that  all  that  I 
have  said  of  the  heathen  idolatry  is  so  exactly  applicable  to  the 
idolatry  of  another  sort  of  men  in  the  world,  that  one  would 
think  this  first  chapter  of  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  were  not  so 
much  an  address  to  the  ancient  Romans,  as  a  description  of  the 
modern. 

But  to  draw  towards  a  close.  The  use  and  improvement  of 
the  foregoing  discourse  shall  be  briefly  to  inform  us  of  these  two 
things. 

1.  The  signally  great  and  peculiar  mercy  of  God  to  those  to 
whom  he  has  revealed  the  gospel,  since  there  was  nothing  that 
could  have  obliged  him  to  it  upon  the  account  of  his  justice  ;  for 
if  there  had,  the  heathens,  to  whom  he  revealed  it  not,  could  not 
have  been  thus  without  excuse ;  but  might  very  rationally  have 
expostulated  the  case  with  their  great  judge,  and  demurred  to  the 
equity  of  the  sentence,  had  they  been  condemned  by  him.  But  it 
appears  from  hence,  that  what  was  sufficient  to  render  men  inex- 
cusable, was  not  therefore  sufficient  to  save  them. 

It  is  not  said  by  the  apostle,  nor  can  it  be  proved  by  any  one 


316 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XIX. 


else,  that  God  vouchsafed  to  the  heathens  the  means  of  salvation, 
if  so  be  the  gospel  be  the  only  means  of  it.  And  yet  I  will  not, 
I  dare  not  affirm,  that  God  will  save  none  of  those  to  whom  the 
sound  of  the  gospel  never  reached  :  though  this  is  evident,  that 
if  he  does  save  any  of  them,  it  must  not  be  by  that  ordinary, 
stated,  appointed  method,  which  the  scripture  has  revealed  to  us, 
and  which  they  were  wholly  ignorant  of.  For  grant,  that  the 
heathens  knew  that  there  was  a  God,  who  both  made  and  gov- 
erned the  world ;  and  who,  upon  that  account,  was  to  be  wor- 
shipped, and  that  with  such  a  worship  as  should  be  suitable  to 
such  a  being  ;  yet  what  principle  of  mere  reason  could  assure 
them,  that  this  God  would  be  a  rewarder  of  such  as  diligently 
sought  and  served  him  ?  For  certain  it  is,  that  there  is  nothing  in 
the  nature  of  God  to  oblige  him  to  reward  any  service  of  his 
creature ;  forasmuch  as  all  the  creature  can  do  is  but  duty  ;  and 
even  now,  at  this  time,  God  has  no  other  obligation  upon  him, 
but  his  own  free  promise  to  reward  the  piety  and  obedience  of 
his  servants  ;  which  promise  reason  of  itself  could  never  have 
found  out,  till  God  made  it  known  by  revelation.  And  moreover, 
what  principle  of  reason  could  assure  a  man  that  God  would  par- 
don sinners  upon  any  terms  whatsoever  ?  Possibly  it  might  know, 
that  God  could  do  so  ;  but  this  was  no  sufficient  ground  for  men 
to  depend  upon.  And  then,  last  of  all,  as  for  the  way  of  his 
pardoning  sinners,  that  he  should  do  it  upon  a  satisfaction  paid  to 
his  justice,  by  such  a  Saviour,  as  should  be  both  God  and  man  ; 
this  was  utterly  impossible  for  all  the  reason  of  mankind  to  find 
out. 

For  that  these  things  could  be  read  in  the  book  of  nature,  or 
the  common  works  of  God's  providence,  or  be  learned  by  the  sun 
and  moon's  preaching  the  gospel,  as  some  have  fondly  (not  to  say 
profanely)  enough  asserted,  it  is  infinitely  sottish  to  imagine,  and 
can  indeed  be  nothing  else  but  the  turning  the  grace  of  God  into 
wanton  and  unreasonable  propositions. 

It  is  clear  therefore,  that  the  heathens  had  no  knowledge  of  that 
way  by  which  alone  we  expect  salvation.  So  that  all  the  hope 
which  we  can  have  for  them  is,  that  the  gospel  may  not  be  the 
utmost  limit  of  the  divine  mercy ;  but  that  the  merit  of  Christ 
may  overflow  and  run  over  the  pale  of  the  church,  so  as  to  reach 
even  many  of  those  who  lived  and  died  invincibly  ignorant 
of  him. 

But  whether  this  shall  be  so  or  no,  God  alone  knows,  who  only 
is  privy  to  the  great  counsels  of  his  own  will.  It  is  a  secret  hid 
from  us  ;  and  therefore,  though  we  may  hope  compassionately, 
yet  I  am  sure  we  can  pronounce  nothing  certainly :  it  is  enough 
for  us,  that  God  has  asserted  his  justice,  even  in  his  dealing  with 
those  whom  he  treats  not  upon  terms  of  evangelical  mercy.  So 
that  such  persons  can  neither  excuse  themselves,  nor  yet  accuse 
him  :  who,  in  the  severest  sentence  that  he  can  pronounce  upon 


SINNERS  INEXCUSABLE  FROM  NATURAL  RELIGION  ONLY.     3 17 

the  sinner,  will,  as  the  psalmist  tells  us,  "be  justified  when  he 
speaks,  and  clear  when  he  is  judged." 

2.  In  the  next  place,  we  gather  hence  the  unspeakably 
wretched  and  deplorable  condition  of  obstinate  sinners  under  the 
gospel.  The  sun  of  mercy  has  shined  too  long  and  too  bright 
upon  such,  to  leave  them  any  shadow  of  excuse.  For  let  them 
argue  over  all  the  topics  of  divine  goodness  "and  human  weakness, 
and  whatsoever  other  pretences  poor,  sinking  sinners  are  apt  to 
catch  at,  to  support  and  save  themselves  by ;  yet  how  trifling  must 
be  their  plea !  how  impertinent  their  defence  ! 

For  admit  an  impenitent  heathen  to  plead,  that,  albeit  his  con- 
science told  him  that  he  had  sinned,  yet  it  could  not  tell  him  that 
there  was  any  provision  of  mercy  for  him  upon  his  repentance. 
He  knew  not  whether  amendment  of  life  would  be  accepted  after 
the  law  was  once  broken  ;  or  that  there  was  any  other  righteous- 
ness to  atone  or  merit  for  him  but  his  own. 

But  no  Christian  who  has  been  taken  into  the  arms  of  a 
better  covenant,  and  grown  up  in  the  knowledge  of  a  Saviour, 
and  the  doctrine  of  faith  and  repentance  from  dead  works,  can 
speak  so  much  as  one  plausible  word  for  his  impenitence.  And 
therefore  it  was  said  of  him  who  came  to  the  marriage  feast  with- 
out a  wedding  garment,  that,  being  charged  and  apprehended  for 
it,  i$iuJjQrh  "  he  was  speechless,"  struck  with  shame  and  silence, 
the  proper  effects  of  an  overpowering  guilt,  too  manifest  to  be 
denied,  and  too  gross  to  be  defended.  His  reason  deserted,  and 
his  voice  failed  him,  finding  himself  arraigned,  convicted  and  con- 
demned in  the  court  of  his  own  conscience. 

So  that  if,  after  all  this,  his  great  Judge  had  freely  asked  him 
what  he  could  allege  or  say  for  himself,  why  he  should  not  have 
judgment  to  die  eternally,  and  sentence  to  be  awarded  according 
to  the  utmost  rigour  of  the  law,  he  could  not,  in  this  forlorn  case, 
have  made  use  of  the  very  last  plea  of  a  cast  criminal ;  nor  so 
much  as  have  cried,  "Mercy,  Lord,  mercy."  For  still  his  con- 
science would  have  replied  upon  him,  that  mercy  had  been  offered 
and  abused ;  and  that  the  time  of  mercy  wTas  nowT  past.  And  so, 
under  this  overwhelming  conviction,  every  gospel  sinner  must 
pass  to  his  eternal  execution,  taking  the  whole  load  of  his  own 
damnation  solely  and  entirely  upon  himself,  and  acquitting  the  most 
just  God,  "  who  is  righteous  in  all  his  works,  and  holy  in  all  his 
ways." 

To  whom,  therefore,  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due, 
all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  ever- 
more. Amen. 


2d2 


318 


SERMON  XX. 

OF  A  WORTHY  PREPARATION  FOR  THE  SACRAMENT  OF  THE 
EUCHARIST. 

[Preached  at  Westminster  Abbey,  April  8, 1688,  being"  Palm  Sunday.] 

Matt.  xxii.  12. 

And  he  saith  unto  him,  Friend,  how  earnest  thou  in  hither  not 
having  a  wedding  garment? 

The  whole  scheme  of  th°se  words  is  figurative,  as  being  a 
parabolical  description  of  God's  vouchsafing  to  the  world  the 
invaluable  blessing  of  the  gospel,  by  the  similitude  of  a  king, 
with  great  magnificence  solemnizing  his  son's  marriage,  and  with 
equal  bounty  bidding  and  inviting  all  about  him  to  that  royal 
solemnity :  together  with  his  severe  animadversion,  both  upon 
those  who  would  not  come,  and  upon  one  who  did  come  in  a  very 
unbeseeming  manner. 

For  the  better  understanding  of  which  words,  we  must  observe, 
that  in  all  parables,  two  things  are  to  be  considered. 

First,  The  scope  and  design  of  the  parable ;  and, 

Secondly,  The  circumstantial  passages  serving  only  to  complete 
and  make  up  the  narration. 

Accordingly,  in  our  application  of  any  parable  to  the  thing  de- 
signed and  set  forth  by  it,  we  must  not  look  for  an  absolute  and 
exact  correspondence  of  all  the  circumstantial  or  subservient  pas- 
sages of  the  metaphorical  part  of  it,  with  just  so  many  of  the  same, 
or  the  like  passages  in  the  thing  intended  by  it ;  but  it  is  sufficient 
that  there  be  a  certain  analogy,  or  agreement  between  them,  as  to 
the  principal  scope  and  design  of  both. 

As  for  the  design  of  this  parable,  it  is,  no  doubt,  to  set  forth 
the  free  offer  of  the  gospel,  with  all  its  rich  privileges,  to  the 
Jewish  church  and  nation  in  the  first  place ;  and,  upon  their 
refusal  of  it,  and  God's  rejection  of  them  for  that  refusal,  to 
declare  the  calling  of  the  gentiles  in  their  room,  by  a  free,  un- 
limited tender  of  the  gospel  to  all  nations  whatsoever;  adding 
withal  a  very  dreadful  and  severe  sentence  upon  those  who, 
being  so  freely  invited  and  so  generously  admitted  to  such  high 
and  undeserved  privileges,  should  nevertheless  abuse  and  despise 
them  by  an  unworthy,  wicked,  and  ungrateful  deportment  under 
them. 

For  men  must  not  think  that  the  gospel  is  all  made  up  of  privi- 
lege and  promise,  but  that  there  is  something  of  duty  to  be 
performed,  as  well  as  of  privilege  to  be  enjoyed.    No  welcome 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  HOLY  EUCHARIST. 


319 


to  a  wedding  supper,  without  a  wedding  garment ;  and  no  coming 
by  a  wedding  garment  for  nothing.  In  all  the  transactions  be- 
tween God  and  the  souls  of  men,  something  is  expected  on  both 
sides ;  there  being  a  fixed,  indissoluble,  and  (in  the  language  of 
the  parable)  a  kind  of  marriage  tie  between  duty  and  privilege, 
which  renders  them  inseparable. 

Now,  though  I  question  not,  but  that  this  parable  of  the  wed- 
ding comprehends  in  it  the  whole  complex  of  all  the  blessings 
and  privileges  exhibited  by  the  gospel ;  yet  I  conceive,  that  there 
is  one  principal  privilege  amongst  all  the  rest,  that  it  seems  more 
peculiarly  to  aim  at,  or  at  least  may  more  appositely  and  emphati- 
cally be  applied  to,  than  to  any  other  whatsoever.  And  that  is 
the  blessed  sacrament  of  the  eucharist,  by  which  all  the  benefits 
of  the  gospel  are  in  a  higher,  fuller,  and  more  divine  manner  con- 
veyed to  the  faithful,  than  by  any  other  duty  or  privilege  belonging 
to  our  excellent  religion.  And  for  this,  I  shall  offer  these  three 
following  reasons. 

1.  Because  the  foundation  of  all  parables  is,  as  we  have  shown, 
some  analog}-  or  similitude  between  the  tropical  or  allusive  part  of 
the  parable,  and  the  thing  couched  under  it,  and  intended  by  it. 
But  now,  of  all  the  benefits,  privileges,  or  ordinances  of  the 
gospel,  which  of  them  is  there  that  carries  so  natural  a  resemblance 
to  a  wedding  supper  as  that,  which  every  one  of  a  very  ordinary 
discerning  faculty  may  observe  in  the  sacrament  of  the  eucharist  ? 
For  surely,  neither  the  preaching  of  the  word,  nor  yet  the  sacra- 
ment of  baptism,  bears  any  such  resemblance  or  affinity  to  it. 
But  on  the  other  side  this  sacrament  of  the  eucharist  so  lively  re- 
sembles, and  so  happily  falls  in  with  it,  that  it  is  indeed  itself  a 
supper,  and  is  called  a  supper,  and  that  by  a  genuine,  proper,  as 
well  as  a  common,  and  received  appellation. 

2.  This  sacrament  is  not  only  with  great  propriety  of  speech 
called  a  supper ;  but  moreover,  as  it  is  the  grand  and  prime 
means  of  the  nearest  and  most  intimate  union  and  conjunction  of 
the  soul  with  Christ,  it  may,  with  a  peculiar  significancy,  be 
called  also  a  wedding  supper.  And,  as  Christ  frequently  in  scrip- 
ture owns  himself  related  to  the  church,  as  a  husband  to  a  spouse ; 
so,  if  these  nuptial  endearments,  by  which  Christ  gives  himself  to 
the  soul,  and  the  soul  mutually  gives  itself  to  Christ,  pass  between 
Christ  and  believers  in  any  ordinance  of  the  gospel,  doubtless  it  is 
most  eminently  and  effectually  in  this.  Which  is  another  pregnant 
instance  of  the  notable  resemblance  between  this  divine  sacrament, 
and  the  wedding  supper  in  the  parable ;  and,  consequently,  a 
further  argument  of  the  elegant  and  expressive  signification  of  one 
by  the  other. 

3.  And  lastly,  The  very  manner  of  celebrating  this  sacrament, 
which  is  by  the  breaking  of  bread,  was  the  way  and  manner  of 
transacting  marriages  in  some  of  the  eastern  countries.  Thus 
Q.  Curtius  reports,  that  when  Alexander  the  Great  married  the 


320 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XX. 


Persian  Roxana,  the  ceremony  they  used  was  no  other  but  this  ; 
panem  gladio  divisum  uterque  libabat ;  he  divided  a  piece  of  bread 
with  his  sword,  of  which  each  of  them  took  a  part,  and  so  there- 
by the  nuptial  rites  were  performed.  Besides  that  this  ceremony 
of  feasting  belongs  most  properly  both  to  marriage  and  to  the 
eucharist,  as  both  of  them  have  the  nature  of  a  covenant.  And 
all  covenants  were,  in  old  times,  solemnized  and  accompanied 
with  festival  eating  and  drinking :  the  persons  newly  confederate, 
always  thereupon  feasting  together  in  token  of  their  full  and  per- 
fect accord,  both  as  to  interest  and  affection. 

And  now  these  three  considerations  together,  so  exactly  suiting 
the  parable  of  the  wedding  supper  to  this  spiritual,  divine  banquet 
of  the  gospel,  if  it  does  not  primarily,  and  in  its  first  design  in- 
tend it :  yet  certainly  it  may,  with  greater  advantage  of  resem- 
blance, be  applied  to  it,  than  to  any  other  duty  or  privilege  be- 
longing to  Christianity. 

Upon  the  warrant  of  which  so  very  particular  and  extraordi- 
nary a  cognation  between  them,  I  shall  at  present  treat  of  the 
words  wholly  with  reference  to  this  sacred  and  divine  solemnity, 
observing  and  gathering  from  them,  as  they  lie  in  coherence  with 
the  foregoing  and  following  parts  of  the  parable,  these  two  pro- 
positions. 

I.  That  to  a  worthy  participation  of  the  holy  mysteries  and 
great  privileges  of  the  gospel,  and  particularly  that  of  the  Lord's 
supper,  there  is  indispensably  required  a  suitable  preparation. 

II.  That  God  is  a  strict  observer  of,  and  a  severe  animadverter 
upon,  such  as  presume  to  partake  of  those  mysteries,  without  such 
a  preparation. 

I.  For  the  first  of  these,  viz.  That  to  a  worthy  participation  of 
the  holy  mysteries  and  great  privileges  of  the  gospel,  and  particu- 
larly that  of  the  Lora?s  supper,  there  is  indispensably  required  a 
suitable  preparation. 

Now  this  proposition  imports  in  it  two  things, 

1.  That  to  a  right  discharge  of  this  duty,  a  preparation  is  ne- 
cessary. 2.  That  every  preparation  is  not  sufficient.  And  first 
for  the 

First  of  these,  That  a  preparation  is  necessary.  And  this,  I 
confess,  is  a  subject  which  I  am  heartily  sorry  that  any  preacher 
should  find  it  needful  to  speak  so  much  as  one  word  upon.  For 
would  any  man  in  his  wits  venture  to  die  without  preparation  ? 
And  if  not,  let  me  tell  you,  that  nothing  less  than  that  which  will 
fit  a  man  for  death,  can  fit  him  for  the  sacrament.  The  truth  is, 
there  is  nothing  great  or  considerable  in  the  world  which  ought  to 
be  done  or  ventured  upon  without  preparation  :  but,  above  all,  how 
dangerous,  sottish,  and  irrational  is  it,  to  engage  in  any  thing  or 
action  extempore,  where  the  concern  is  eternity ! 

None  but  the  careless  and  the  confident  (and  few  are  confident 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  HOLY  EUCHARIST. 


321 


but  what  are  first  careless)  would  rush  rudely  into  the  presence 
of  a  great  man :  and  shall  we,  in  our  applications  to  the  great 
God,  take  that  to  be  religion,  which  the  common  reason  of  man- 
kind will  not  allow  to  be  manners  ?  The  very  rules  of  worldly 
civility  might  instruct  men  how  to  order  their  addresses  to  God. 
For  who,  that  is  to  appear  before  his  prince  -or  patron,  would  not 
view  and  review  himself  over  and  over,  with  all  imaginable  care 
and  solicitude,  that  there  be  nothing  justly  offensive  in  his  habit, 
language  or  behaviour  ?  But  especially,  if  he  be  vouchsafed  the 
honour  of  his  table,  it  would  be  infinitely  more  absurd  and 
shameful  to  appear  foul  and  sordid  there  ;  and  in  the  dress  of 
the  kitchen,  receive  the  entertainments  of  the  parlour. 

What  previous  cleansings  and  consecrations,  and  what  peculiar 
vestments  were  the  priests,  under  the  law,  enjoined  to  use,  when 
they  were  to  appear  before  God  in  the  sanctuary !  And  all  this 
upon  no  less  a  penalty  than  death.  This  and  this  they  were  to  do, 
"  lest  they  died,"  lest  God  should  strike  them  dead  upon  the  spot : 
as  we  read  in  Lev.  viii.  35,  and  in  many  other  places  in  the 
books  of  Moses.  And  so  exact  were  the  Jews  in  their  prepara- 
tions for  the  solemn  times  of  God's  worship,  that  every  adppator 
had  its  TtpoodpiSatov  or  Ttapaaxsvr^  that  is  a  part  of  the  sixth  day, 
from  the  hour  of  six  in  the  evening,  to  fit  them  for  the  duties  of 
the  seventh  day.  Nor  was  this  all ;  but  they  had  also  a  Ttportapa- 
oxivriy  beginning  about  three  in  the  afternoon,  to  prepare  them  for 
that :  and  indeed  the  whole  day  was,  in  a  manner,  but  preparative 
to  the  next ;  several  works  being  disallowed  and  forborn  amongst 
them  on  that  day,  wThich  were  not  so  upon  any  of  the  foregoing 
five :  so  careful,  even  to  scrupulosity,  were  they  to  keep  their 
sabbath  with  due  reverence  and  devotion,  that  they  must  not 
only  have  a  time  to  prepare  them  for  that,  but  a  further  time  also 
to  prepare  them  for  their  very  preparations. 

Nay,  and  the  heathens,  many  of  them  at  least,  when  they 
were  to  sacrifice  to  their  greatest  and  most  revered  deities,  used 
on  the  evening  before  to  have  a  certain  preparative  rite  or  cere- 
mony ,*called  by  them  ccena  pura ;  that  is,  a  supper,  consisting 
of  some  peculiar  meats,  in  which  they  imagined  a  kind  of  holi- 
ness ;  and  by  eating  of  which,  they  thought  themselves  sanctified, 
and  fitted  to  officiate  about  the  mysteries  of  the  ensuing  festival. 
And  what  were  all  their  lustrations,  but  so  many  solemn  purifyings, 
to  render  both  themselves  and  their  sacrifices  acceptable  to  their 
gods  ? 

So  that  we  see  here  a  concurrence  both  of  the  Jews  and  hea- 
thens in  this  practice,  before  Christianity  ever  appeared :  which 
to  me  is  a  kind  of  demonstration,  that  the  necessity  of  men's 
preparing  themselves  for  the  sacred  offices  of  religion,  was  a 
lesson  which  the  mere  light  and  dictates  of  common  reason, 
without  the  help  of  revelation,  taught  all  the  knowing  and  intel- 
ligent part  of  the  world. 

Vol.  I.— 41 


322 


DR.   SOUTH?S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XX. 


"  I  will  wash  my  hands  in  innocency,"  says  David,  "and  so 
will  I  compass  thine  altar,"  Psalm  xxvi.  6.  And  as  the  apostle 
told  the  Hebrews,  Heb.  xiii.  10,  "  we  also,"  we  Christians,  have 
an  altar"  as  well  as  they;  an  altar  as  sacred,  an  altar  to  be  ap- 
proached with  as  much  awe  and  reverence ;  and  though  there  be 
no  fire  upon  it,  yet  there  is  a  dreadful  one  that  follows  it.  A 
fire  that  does  not  indeed  consume  the  offering ;  but  such  a  one  as 
will  be  sure  to  seize  and  prey  upon  the  unworthy  offerer.  "  I 
will  be  santified,"  says  God,  "  in  them  that  come  nigh  me,"  Lev. 
x.  3.  And  God  then  accounts  himself  sanctified  in  such  persons, 
when  they  sanctify  themselves.  Nadab  and  Abihu  were  a  dread- 
ful exposition  of  this  text. 

And  for  what  concerns  ourselves  ;  he  that  shall  thoroughly  con- 
sider what  the  heart  of  man  is,  what  sin  and  the  world  is,  and  what 
it  is  to  approve  one's  self  to  an  all-searching  eye,  in  so  sublime  a 
duty  as  the  sacrament,  must  acknowledge  that  a  man  may  as  well 
go  about  it  without  a  soul,  as  without  preparation. 

For  the  holiest  man  living,  by  conversing  with  the  world,  in- 
sensibly draws  something  of  soil  and  taint  from  it :  the  very  air 
and  mien,  the  way  and  business  of  the  world,  still,  as  it  were, 
rubbing  something  upon  the  soul,  which  must  be  fetched  off, 
again,  before  it  can  be  able  heartily  to  converse  with  God. 
Many  secret  indispositions,  coldnesses,  and  aversions  to  duty,  will 
undiscernibly  steal  upon  it :  and  it  will  require  both  time  and 
close  application  of  mind,  to  recover  it  to  such  a  frame  as  shall 
dispose  and  fit  it  for  the  spiritualities  of  religion. 

And  such  as  have  made  trial,  find  it  neither  so  easy,  nor  so 
ready  a  passage  from  the  noise,  the  din,  and  hurry  of  business,  to 
the  retirements  of  devotion,  from  the  exchange  to  the  closet,  and 
from  the  freedoms  of  conversation,  to  the  recollections  and  disci- 
plines of  the  spirit. 

The  Jews,  as  soon  as  they  came  from  markets,  or  any  other 
such  promiscuous  resorts,  would  be  sure  to  use  accurate  and 
more  than  ordinary  washings.  And  had  their  washings  soaked 
through  the  body  into  the  soul  ;  and  had  not  their*  inside 
reproached  their  outside,  I  see  nothing  in  this  custom  but  what 
was  allowable  enough,  and,  in  a  people  which  needed  washing  so 
much,  very  commendable.  Nevertheless,  whatsoever  it  might 
have  in  it  peculiar  to  the  genius  of  that  nation,  the  spiritual  use  and 
improvement  of  it,  I  am  sure,  may  very  well  reach  the  best 
of  us.  So  that  if  the  Jews  thought  this  practice  requisite  before 
they  sat  down  to  their  own  tables,  let  us  Christians  think  it  ab- 
solutely necessary,  when  we  come  to  God's  table,  not  to  eat  till 
we  have  washed^  And  when  I  have  said  so,  I  suppose  I  need 
not  add,  that  our  washing  is  to  be  like  our  eating,  both  of  them 
spiritual ;  that  we  are  to  carry  it  from  the  hand  to  the  heart,  to  im- 
prove a  ceremonial  nicety  into  a  substantial  duty,  and  the  modes 
of  civility  into  the  realities  of  religion. 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  HOLY  EUCHARIST. 


323 


And  thus  much  for  the  first  thing,  that  a  preparation  in 
general  is  necessary.  But  then,  2.  The  other  thing  imported  in 
the  proposition  is,  that  every  preparation  is  not  sufficient.  It  must 
be  a  suitable  preparation;  none  but  a  "wedding  garment"  will 
serve  the  turn ;  a  garment  as  much  fitted  to  the  solemnity,  as  to 
the  body  itself  that  wears  it. 

Now  all  fitness  lies  in  a  particular  commensuration  or  propor- 
tion of  one  thing  to  another ;  and  that  such  a  one  as  is  founded  in 
the  very  nature  of  things  themselves,  and  not  in  the  opinions  of 
men  concerning  them.  And  for  this  cause  it  is  that  the  soul,  no 
less  than  the  body,  must  have  its  several  distinct  postures  and  dis- 
positions, fitting  it  for  several  distinct  offices  and  performances. 
And  as  no  man  comes  with  folded  arms  to  fight  or  wrestle,  nor 
prepares  himself  for  the  battle  as  he  would  compose  himself  to 
sleep  ;  so,  upon  a  true  estimate  of  things,  it  will  be  found  every 
whit  as  absurd  and  irrational,  for  a  man  to  discharge  the  most  ex- 
traordinary duty  of  his  religion  at  the  rate  of  an  ordinary  devotion. 
For  this  is  really  a  paradox  in  practice,  and  men  may  sometimes 
do,  as  well  as  speak,  contradictions. 

There  is  a  great  festival  now  drawing  on  ;  a  festival  designed 
chiefly  for  the  acts  of  a  joyful  piety,  but  generally  made  only  an 
occasion  of  bravery.  I  shall  say  no  more  of  it  at  present  but 
this ;  that  God  expects  from  men  something  more  than  ordinary 
at  such  times,  and  that  it  were  much  to  be  wished,  for  the  credit 
of  their  religion,  as  well  as  the  satisfaction  of  their  consciences, 
that  their  Easter  devotions  would,  in  some  measure,  come  up  to 
their  Easter  dress. 

Now  that  our  preparation  may  answer  the  important  work 
and  duty  which  we  are  to  engage  in,  these  two  conditions  or 
qualifications  are  required  in  it.  1.  That  it  be  habitual.  2.  That 
it  be  also  actual. 

For  it  is  certain,  that  there  may  both  be  acts  which  proceed 
not  from  any  pre-existing  habits  ;  and  on  the  other  side,  habits, 
which  lie  for  a  time  dormant,  and  do  not  at  all  exert  themselves 
in  action.  But  in  the  case  now  before  us,  there  must  be  con- 
junction of  both  ;  and  one  without  the  other  can  never  be  effec- 
tual for  that  purpose,  for  which  both  together  are  but  sufficient. 
And, 

First,  For  habitual  preparation.  This  consists  in  a  standing 
permanent  habit  or  principle  of  holiness,  wrought  chiefly  by 
God's  Spirit,  and  instrumentally  by  his  word,  in  the  heart  or  soul 
of  man.  Such  a  principle  as  is  called,  both  by  our  Saviour  and 
his  apostles,  the  new  birth,  the  new  man,  the  immortal  seed,  and 
the  like  :  and  by  which  a  man  is  so  universally  changed  and 
transformed,  in  the  whole  frame  and  temper  of  his  soul,  as  to 
have  a  new  judgment  and  sense  of  things,  new  desires,  new  ap- 
petites, and  inclinations. 

And  this  is  first  produced  in  him  by  that  mighty  spiritual 


324 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XX. 


change  which  we  call  conversion:  which  being  so  rarely  and 
seldom  found  in  the  hearts  of  men,  even  wdiere  it  is  most  pre- 
tended to,  is  but  too  full  and  sad  a  demonstration  of  the  truth  of 
that  terrible  saying,  that  "  few  are  chosen and  consequently, 
but  few  saved.  For  who  almost  is  there,  of  whom  we  can  with 
any  rational  assurance,  or  perhaps  so  much  as  likelihood,  affirm, 
Here  is  a  man  whose  nature  is  renewed,  whose  heart  is  changed, 
and  the  stream  of  whose  appetites  is  so  turned,  that  he  does  with 
as  high  and  quick  a  relish  taste  the  ways  of  duty,  holiness,  and 
strict  living,  as  others,  or  as  he  himself  before  this,  gasped  at  the 
most  enamouring  proposals  of  sin  ?  Who,  almost,  I  say,  is 
there,  who  can  reach  and  verify  the  height  of  this  character  ?  and 
yet  without  which,  the  scripture  absolutely  affirms,  that  a  man 
"cannot  seethe  kingdom  of  God,"  John  iii.  3.  For  let  preachers 
say  and  suggest  what  they  will,  men  will  do  as  they  use  to  do  ; 
and  custom  generally  is  too  hard  for  conscience,  in  spite  of  all  its 
convictions.  Possibly  sometimes  in  hearing  or  reading  the  word, 
the  conscience  may  be  alarmed,  the  affections  warmed,  good 
desires  begin  to  kindle?  and  to  form  themselves  into  some  degrees 
of  resolution  ;  but  the  heart  remaining  all  the  time  unchanged,  as 
soon  as  men  slide  into  the  common  course  and  converse  of  the 
world,  all  those  resolutions  and  convictions  quickly  cool  and 
languish,  and  after  a  few  days  are  dismissed  as  troublesome  com- 
panions. But  assuredly,  no  man  was  ever  made  a  true  convert,  or 
a  "  new  creature,"  at  so  easy  a  rate  ;  sin  was  never  dispossessed, 
nor  holiness  introduced,  by  such  feeble,  vanishing  impressions. 
Nothing  under  a  thorough  change  will  suffice  ;  neither  tears  nor 
trouble  of  mind,  neither  good  desires  nor  intentions,  nor  yet  the 
relinquishment  of  some  sins,  nor  the  performance  of  some  good 
works,  will  avail  any  thing,  "  but  anew  creature:"  a  word  that 
comprehends  more  in  it  than  words  can  well  express ;  and,  per- 
haps, after  all  that  can  be  said  of  it,  never  thoroughly  to  be  under- 
stood by  what  a  man  hears  from  others,  but  by  what  he  must  feel 
within  himself. 

And  now,  that  this  is  required  as  the  ground- work  of  all  our 
preparations  for  the  sacrament,  is  evident  from  hence  ;  because 
this  sacrament  is  not  first  designed  to  make  us  holy,  but  rather 
supposes  us  to  be  so ;  it  is  not  a  converting,  but  a  confirming 
ordinance :  it  is  properly  our  spiritual  food.  And,  as  all  food 
presupposes  a  principle  of  life  in  him  who  receives  it,  which  life 
is,  by  this  means,  to  be  continued  and  supported  ;  so  the  sacra- 
ment of  the  Lord's  supper  is  originally  intended  to  preserve  and 
maintain  that  spiritual  life  which  we  do  or  should  receive  in 
baptism,  or  at  least  by  a  thorough  conversion  after  it.  Upon  which 
account,  according  to  the  true  nature  and  intent  of  this  sacrament, 
men  should  not  expect  life,  but  growth  from  it ;  and  see  that 
there  be  something  to  be  fed,  before  they  seek  out  for  provision. 
For  the  truth  is,  for  any  one  who  is  not  "passed  from  death  to 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  HOLY  EUCHARIST. 


325 


life,"  and  has  not  in  him  that  new  living  principle,  which  we  have 
been  hitherto  speaking  of,  to  come  to  this  spiritual  repast,  is  upon 
the  matter  as  absurd  and  preposterous,  as  if  he  who  makes  a  feast 
should  send  to  the  graves  and  the  churchyards  for  guests,  or  enter- 
tain and  treat  a  corpse  at  a  banquet. 

Let  men  therefore  consider,  before  they -come  hither,  whether 
they  have  any  thing  besides  the  name  they  received  in  baptism 
to  prove  their  Christianity  by.  Let  them  consider  whether,  as  by 
their  baptism  they  formerly  washed  away  their  original  guilt, 
so  they  have  not  since,  by  their  actual  sins,  washed  away  their 
baptism.  And  if  so,  whether  the  converting  grace  of  God  has  set 
them  upon  their  legs  again,  by  forming  in  them  a  new  nature : 
and  that  such  a  one  as  exerts  and  shows  itself  by  the  sure,  infal- 
lible effects  of  a  good  life  ;  such  a  one  as  enables  them  to  reject 
and  trample  upon  all  the  alluring  offers  of  the  world,  the  flesh, 
and  the  devil,  so  as  not  to  be  conquered  or  enslaved  by  them; 
and  to  choose  the  hard  and  rugged  paths  of  duty,  rather  than  the 
easy  and  voluptuous  ways  of  sin :  which  every  Christian,  by  the 
very  nature  of  his  religion,  as  well  as  by  his  baptismal  vow,  is 
strictly  obliged  to  do.  And  if,  upon  an  impartial  survey  of 
themselves,  men  find  that  no  such  change  has  passed  upon  them, 
either  let  them  prove  that  they  may  be  Christians  upon  easier 
terms,  or  have  a  care  how  they  intrude  upon  so  great  and  holy 
an  ordinance,  in  which  God  is  so  seldom  mocked,  but  it  is  to  the 
mocker's  confusion.  And  thus  much  for  habitual  preparation. 
But, 

2.  Over  and  above  this,  there  is  required  also  an  actual  prepara- 
tion ;  which  is  as  it  were,  the  furbishing  or  rubbing  up  of  the  former 
habitual  principle. 

We  have  both  of  them  excellently  described  in  Matt,  xxv.,  in 
the  parable  of  the  ten  virgins ;  of  which  the  five  wise  are  said  to 
have  had  oil  in  their  lamps  ;  yet,  notwithstanding  that,  midnight 
and  weariness  were  too  hard  for  them,  and  they  all  slumbered  and 
slept,  and  their  lamps  cast  but  a  dim  and  a  feeble  light  till 
the  bridegroom's  approach  ;  but  then,  upon  the  first  alarm  of  that, 
they  quickly  "  rose,  and  trimmed  their  lamps,"  and  without 
either  trimming  or  painting  themselves,  being  as  much  too  wise, 
as  some  should  be  too  old  for  such  follies,  they  presently  put 
themselves  into  a  readiness  to  receive  their  surprising  gues^. 
Where,  by  their  having  oil  in  their  lamps,  no  doubt  must  be 
understood  a  principle  of  grace  infused  into  their  hearts,  or 
the  new  nature  formed  within  them ;  and  by  their  trimming  their 
lamps,  must  be  meant  their  actual  exercise  and  improvement  of 
that  standing  principle  in  the  particular  instances  of  duty,  suitable 
and  appropriate  to  the  grand  solemnity  of  the  bridegroom's 
reception.  In  like  manner,  when  a  man  comes  to  this  sacrament, 
it  is  not  enough  that  he  has  an  habitual  stock  of  grace,  that  he 
has  the  immortal  seed  of  a  living  faith  sown  in  his  heart.  This 

2E 


326 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XX. 


indeed  is  necesssary,  but  not  sufficient ;  his  faith  must  be  not  only 
living  but  lively  too  ;  it  must  be  brightened  and  stirred  up,  and, 
as  it  were,  put  into  a  posture  by  a  particular  exercise  of  those 
several  virtues  that  are  specifically  requisite  to  a  due  performance 
of  this  duty.  Habitual  grace  is  the  life,  and  actual  grace  the  beauty 
and  ornament  of  the  soul :  and  therefore,  let  people  in  this  high  and 
great  concern  be  but  so  just  to  their  souls,  as,  in  one  much 
less,  they  never  fail  to  be  to  their  bodies  ;  in  which  the  greatest  ad- 
vantages of  natural  beauty  make  none  think  the  further  advantage 
of  a  decent  dress  superfluous. 

Nor  is  it  at  all  strange,  if  we  look  into  the  reason  of  things, 
that  a  man  habitually  good  and  pious,  should,  at  some  certain 
turns  and  times  of  his  life,  be  at  a  loss  how  to  exert  the  highest 
acts  of  that  habitual  principle.  For  no  creature  is  perfect  and  pure 
in  the  act ;  especially  a  creature  so  compounded  of  soul  and  body, 
that  body  seems  much  the  stronger  part  in  the  composition. 

Common  experience  shows  that  the  wisest  of  men  are  not 
always  fit  and  disposed  to  act  wisely,  nor  the  most  admired 
speakers  to  speak  eloquently  and  exactly.  They  have  indeed  an 
acquired,  standing  ability  of  wisdom  and  eloquence  within  them, 
which  gives  them  an  habitual  sufficiency  for  such  performances. 
But  for  all  that,  if  the  deepest  statesman  should  presume  to  go 
to  a  council  immediately  from  his  cups,  or  the  ablest  preacher 
think  himself  fitted  to  preach  only  by  stepping  up  to  the  pulpit ; 
notwithstanding  the  policy  of  the  one,  and  the  eloquence  of  the 
other,  they  may  chance  to  get  the  just  character  of  bold  fools  for 
venturing,  whatsoever  good  fortune  may  bring  them  off. 

And  therefore  the  most  active  powers  and  faculties  of  the 
mind  require  something  beside  themselves  to  raise  them  to  the 
full  height  of  their  natural  activity :  something  to  excite,  and 
quicken,  and  draw  them  forth  into  immediate  action.  And  this 
holds  proportionably  in  all  things,  animate  or  inanimate,  in  the 
world.  The  bare  nature  and  essential  form  of  fire  will  enable  it 
to  burn ;  but  there  must  be  an  enlivening  breath  of  air  besides,  to 
make  it  flame.  A  man  has  the  same  strength,  sleeping  and 
waking :  but  while  he  sleeps  it  fits  him  no  more  for  business  than 
if  he  had  none.  Nor  is  it  the  having  of  wheels  and  springs, 
though  never  so  curiously  wrought,  and  artificially  set,  but  the 
winding  of  them  up,  that  must  give  motion  to  the  watch.  And  it 
would  be  endless  to  illustrate  this  subject  by  all  the  various  in- 
stances that  art  and  nature  could  supply  us  with. 

But  the  case  is  much  the  same  in  spirituals.  For  grace  in  the 
soul,  while  the  soul  is  in  the  body,  will  always  have  the  ill-neigh- 
bourhood of  some  remainders  of  corruption  ;  which,  though  they 
do  not  conquer  and  extinguish,  yet  will  be  sure  to  slacken  and  allay 
the  vigour  and  briskness  of  the  renewed  principle  ;  so  that  when 
this  principle  is  to  engage  in  any  great  duty,  it  will  need  the 
actual  intention,  the    particular  stress  and  application   of  the 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  HOLY  EUCHARIST. 


327 


whole  soul,  to  disencumber  and  set  it  free,  to  scour  off  its  rust, 
and  remove  those  hinderances,  which  would  otherwise  clog  and 
check  the  freedom  of  its  operations. 

II.  And  thus  having  shown,  that  to  fit  us  for  a  due  access  to 
the  holy  sacrament,  we  must  add  actual  preparation  to  habitual, 
I  shall  now  endeavour  to  show  the  several  parts  or  ingredients 
of  which  this  actual  preparation  must  consist. 

And  here  I  shall  not  pretend  to  give  an  account  of  every  par- 
ticular duty  that  may  be  useful  for  this  purpose,  but  shall  only 
mention  some  of  the  principal,  and  such  as  may  most  peculiarly 
contribute  towards  it.  As, 

First,  Let  a  man  apply  himself  to  the  great  and  difficult  work 
of  self-examination  by  a  strict  scrutiny  into,  and  survey  of  the 
whole  state  of  his  soul ;  according  to  that  known  and  excellent 
rule  of  the  apostle,  in  the  very  case  now  before  us,  1  Cor.  xi.  28, 
"  Let  a  man  examine  himself,  and  so  let  him  eat  of  that  bread,"  &c. 
If  a  man  would  have  such  a  wedding  garment  as  may  fit  him 
exactly,  let  self-examination  take  the  measure.  A  duty  of  so 
mighty  an  influence  upon  all  that  concerns  the  soul,  that  it  is  in- 
deed the  very  root  and  ground-work  of  all  true  repentance,  and 
the  necessary  antecedent,  if  not  also  the  direct  cause  of  a  sinner's 
return  to  God. 

For,  as  there  are  some  sins  which  require  a  particular  and  dis- 
tinct repentance  by  themselves,  and  cannot  be  accounted  for  in 
the  general  heap  of  sins,  known  and  unknown  ;  so,  how  is  it  pos- 
sible for  a  man  to  repent  rightly  of  such  sins,  unless  by  a  thorough 
search  into  the  nature,  number,  and  distinguishing  circumstances 
of  them,  he  comes  to  see  how,  and  in  what  degree,  they  are  to  be 
repented  of! 

But  the  sovereign  excellency  and  necessity  of  this  duty  needs 
no  other  nor  greater  proof  of  it,  than  this  one  consideration,  that 
nothing  in  nature  can  be  more  grievous  and  offensive  to  a  sinner, 
than  to  look  into  himself ;  and  generally  what  grace  requires, 
nature  is  most  averse  to.  It  is  indeed  as  offensive  as  to  rake  into 
a  dunghill ;  as  grievous,  as  for  one  to  read  over  his  debts,  when 
he  is  not  able  to  pay  them  ;  or  for  a  bankrupt  to  examine  and  look 
into  his  accounts,  which,  at  the  same  time  that  they  acquaint,  must 
needs  also  upbraid  him  with  his  condition. 

But  as  irksome  as  the  work  is,  it  is  absolutely  necessary. 
Nothing  can  well  be  imagined  more  painful,  than  to  probe  and 
search  a  purulent  old  sore  to  the  bottom  ;  but  for  all  that,  the 
pain  must  be  endured,  or  no  cure  expected.  And  men  certainly 
have  sunk  their  reason  to  very  gross,  low,  and  absurd  conceptions 
of  God,  when  in  the  matter  of  sin  they  can  make  such  false  and 
short  reckonings  with  him  and  their  own  hearts;  for  can  they 
imagine,  that  God  has  therefore  forgot  their  sins,  because  they 
are  not  willing  to  remember  them  ?    Or  will  they  measure  his 


328 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XX. 


pardon  by  their  own  oblivion  ?  What  pitiful  fig-leaves,  what 
senseless  and  ridiculous  shifts  are  these,  not  able  to  silence,  and 
much  less  satisfy,  an  accusing  conscience  ? 

But  now  for  the  better  management  of  this  examination  of  our 
past  lives,  we  must  thoroughly  canvass  them  with  these  and  the 
like  questions. 

As  for  instance  ;  let  a  man  inquire  what  sins  he  has  committed, 
and  what  breaches  he  has  made  upon  those  two  great  standing 
rules  of  duty,  the  decalogue,  and  our  Saviour's  divine  sermon 
upon  the  mount.  Let  him  inquire  also  what  particular  aggrava- 
tions lie  upon  his  sins,  as  whether  they  have  not  been  committed 
against  strong  reluctancy  and  light  of  conscience,  after  many 
winning  calls  of  mercy  to  reclaim,  and  many  terrible  warnings 
of  judgment  to  affright  him?  Whether  resolutions,  vows,  and 
protestations,  have  not  been  made  against  them  ?  Whether  they 
have  not  been  repeated  frequently,  and  persisted  in  obstinately  ? 
And  lastly,  whether  the  same  appetites  to  sin  have  not  remained  as 
active  and  unmortified  after  sacraments,  as  ever  they  had  been 
before  ? 

How  important  these  considerations  and  heads  of  inquiry  are, 
all  who  understand  any  thing  will  easily  perceive.  For  this  we 
must  know,  that  the  very  same  sin,  as  to  the  nature  of  it,  stamped 
with  any  one  of  these  aggravations,  is,  in  effect,  not  the  same. 
And  he  who  has  sinned  the  same  great  sin  after  several  times 
receiving  the  sacrament,  must  not  think  that  God  will  accept  him 
under  ten  times  greater  repentance  and  contrition  for  it,  than  he 
brought  with  him  to  that  duty  formerly.  Whether  God  by  his 
grace  will  enable  him  to  rise  up  to  such  a  pitch,  or  no,  is  uncer- 
tain ;  but  most  certain,  that  both  his  work  is  harder,  and  his  dan- 
ger greater,  than  it  was  or  could  be  at  the  first. 

Secondly,  When  a  man  has,  by  such  a  close  and  rigorous  exa- 
mination of  himself,  found  out  the  "  accursed  thing,"  and  dis- 
covered his  sin  ;  the  next  thing  in  order  must  be,  to  work  up  his 
heart  to  the  utmost  hatred  of  it,  and  the  bitterest  sorrow  and 
remorse  for  it.  For  self-examination  having  first  presented  it  to 
the  thoughts,  these  naturally  transmit  and  hand  it  over  to  the 
passions.  And  this  introduces  the  next  ingredient  of  our  sacra- 
mental preparations,  to  wit,  repentance.  Which  arduous  work  I 
will  suppose  not  now  to  begin,  but  to  be  renewed  ;  and  that  with 
special  reference  to  sins  not  repented  of,  before,  and  yet  more 
especially  to  those  new  scores  which  we  still  run  ourselves  upon, 
since  the  last  preceding  sacrament.  Which  method,  faithfully  and 
constantly  observed,  must  needs  have  an  admirable  and  mighty 
effect  upon  the  conscience,  and  keep  a  man  from  breaking  or  run- 
ning behindhand  in  his  spiritual  estate,  which  without  frequent  ac- 
countings, he  will  hardly  be  able  to  prevent. 

But  because  this  is  a  duty  of  such  high  consequence,  I  would 
by  all  means  warn  men  of  one  very  common,  and  yet  very  dan- 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  HOLY  EUCHARIST. 


329 


gerous  mistake  about  it ;  and  that  is,  the  taking  of  mere  sorrow 
for  sin  for  repentance.  It  is  indeed  a  good  introduction  to  it; 
but  the  porch,  though  never  so  fair  and  spacious,  is  not  the  house 
itself.  Nothing  passes  in  the  accounts  of  God  for  repentance,  but 
change  of  life :  ceasing  to  do  evil,  and  doing  good,  are  the  two 
great  integral  parts  that  complete  this  duty.  For  not  to  do  evil,  is 
much  better  than  the  sharpest  sorrow  for  having  done  it ;  and  to  do 
good  is  better  and  more  valuable  than  both. 

When  a  man  has  found  out  sin  in  his  actions,  let  him  resolutely 
arrest  it  there ;  but  let  him  also  pursue  it  home  to  his  inclinations, 
and  dislodge  it  thence,  otherwise  it  will  be  all  to  little  purpose  ;  for 
the  root  being  still  left  behind,  it  is  odds  but  in  time  it  will  shoot 
out  again. 

Men  befool  themselves  infinitely,  when  by  venting  a  few  sighs 
or  groans,  putting  the  finger  in  the  eye,  and  whimpering  out  a 
few  melancholy  words  ;  and  lastly,  concluding  all  with,  "  I  wish  I 
had  never  done  so  ;  and  I  am  resolved  never  to  do  so  more 
they  will  needs  persuade  themselves  that  they  have  repented  ; 
though,  perhaps,  in  this  very  thing  their  heart  all  the  while 
deceives  them,  and  they  neither  really  wish  the  one,  nor  resolve  the 
other. 

But  whether  they  do  or  no,  all  true  penitential  sorrow  will 
and  must  proceed  much  further.  It  must  force  and  make  its 
way  into  the  very  inmost  corners  and  recesses  of  the  soul ;  it 
must  shake  all  the  powers  of  sin,  producing  in  the  heart  strong 
and  lasting  aversions  to  evil,  and  equal  dispositions  to  good, 
which,  I  must  confess,  are  great  things;  but  if  the  sorrow  which 
we  have  been  speaking  of,  carries  us  not  so  far,  let  it  express  it- 
self never  so  loudly  and  passionately,  and  discharge  itself  in 
never  so  many  showers  of  tears  and  volleys  of  sighs ;  yet,  by  all 
this,  it  will  no  more  purge  a  man's  heart,  than  the  washing  of  his 
hands  can  cleanse  the  rottenness  of  his  bones.  But, 

Thirdly,  When  self-examination  has  both  shown  us  our  sin, 
and  repentance  has  disowned  and  cast  it  out,  the  next  thing  na- 
turally consequent  upon  this,  is  with  the  highest  importunity  to  sup- 
plicate God's  pardon  for  the  guilt,  and  his  grace  against  the 
power  of  it.  And  this  brings  in  prayer  as  the  third  preparative  for 
the  sacrament.  A  duty  upon  which  all  the  blessings  of  both  worlds 
are  entailed.  A  duty  appointed  by  God  himself,  as  the  great  con- 
duit and  noble  instrument  of  commerce  between  heaven  and  earth. 
A  duty  founded  on  man's  essential  dependence  upon  God,  and  so, 
in  the  ground  and  reason  of  it,  perpetual,  and  consequently,  in  the 
practice  of  it,  indispensable. 

But  I  shall  speak  of  it  now  only  with  reference  to  the  sacra- 
ment. And  so,  whatsoever  other  graces  may  furnish  us  with  a 
wedding  garment,  it  is  certain  that  prayer  must  put  it  on.  Prayer 
is  that  by  which  a  man  engages  all  the  auxiliaries  of  omnipotence 
itself  against  his  sin;  and  is  so  utterly  contrary  to,  and  incon- 

Vol.  I. — 42  2  e  2 


330 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XX. 


sistent  with  it,  that  the  same  heart  cannot  long  hold  them  both,  but 
one  must  soon  quit  possession  of  it  to  the  other ;  and  either  praying 
make  a  man  leave  off  sinning,  or  sinning  force  him  to  give  over 
praying. 

Every  real  act  of  hatred  of  sin  is,  in  the  very  nature  of  a  thing, 
a  partial  mortification  of  it ;  and  it  is  hardly  possible  for  a  man  to 
pray  heartily  against  his  sin,  but  he  must  at  the  same  time  hate  it 
too.  I  know  a  man  may  think  that  he  hates  his  sin,  when  indeed 
he  does  not ;  but  then  it  is  also  as  true,  that  he  does  not  sincerely 
pray  against  it  whatsoever  he  may  imagine. 

Besides,  since  the  very  life  and  spirit  of  prayer  consists  in  an 
ardent,  vehement  desire  of  the  thing  prayed  for;  and  since  the 
nature  of  the  soul  is  such,  that  it  strangely  symbolizes  with  the 
thing  it  mightily  desires ;  it  is  evident,  that  if  a  man  would  have 
a  devout,  humble,  sin-abhorring,  self-denying  frame  of  spirit,  he 
cannot  take  a  more  efficacious  course  to  attain  it,  than  by  praying 
himself  into  it.  And  so  close  a  connexion  has  this  duty  with  the 
sacrament,  that  whatsoever  we  receive  in  the  sacrament  is  properly 
in  answer  to  our  prayers.  And  consequently  we  may  with  great 
assurance  conclude,  that  he  who  is  not  frequently  upon  his  knees 
before  he  comes  to  that  holy  table,  kneels  to  very  little  purpose 
when  he  is  there.    But  then, 

Fourthly,  Because  prayer  is  not  only  one  of  the  highest  and 
hardest  duties  in  itself,  but  ought  to  be  more  than  ordinarily  fer- 
vent and  vigorous  before  the  sacrament ;  let  the  body  be  also  called 
in,  as  an  assistant  to  the  soul,  and  abstinence  and  fasting  added  to 
promote  and  heighten  her  devotions.  Prayer  is  a  kind  of  wrestling 
with  God  ;  and  he  who  would  win  the  prize  at  that  exercise,  must 
be  severely  dieted  for  that  purpose. 

The  truth  is,  fasting  was  ever  acknowledged  by  the  church  in 
all  ages,  as  a  singular  instrument  of  religion,  and  a  particular 
preparative  to  the  sacrament.  And  hardly  was  there  ever  any 
thing  great  or  heroic  either  done  or  attempted  in  religion  with- 
out it.  Thus  when  Moses  received  the  law  from  God,  it  was 
with  fasting,  Deut.  ix.  9.  When  Christ  entered  upon  the  great 
office  of  his  mediatorship,  it  was  with  fasting,  Matt.  iv.  2.  And 
when  Paul  and  Barnabas  were  separated  to  that  high  and  difficult 
charge  of  preaching  to  the  gentiles,  Acts.  xiii.  2,  still  it  was  man- 
aged with  fasting.  And,  we  know  the  rubric  of  our  own  church 
always,  almost,  enjoins  a  fast  to  prepare  us  for  a  festival. 

Bodily  abstinence  is  certainly  a  great  help  to  the  spirit,  and  the 
experience  of  all  wise  and  good  men  has  ever  found  it  so.  The 
ways  of  nature  and  the  methods  of  grace  are  vastly  different. 
Good  men  themselves  are  never  so  surprised,  as  in  the  midst  of 
their  jollities ;  nor  so  fatally  overtaken  and  caught  as  when  their 
table  is  made  the  snare.  Even  our  first  parents  ate  themselves 
out  of  paradise  ;  and  Job's  children  junketed  and  feasted  together 
often,  but  the  reckoning  cost  them  dear  at  last.    The  "  heart  of 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  HOLY  EUCHARIST. 


331 


the  wise,"  says  Solomon,  "  is  in  the  house  of  mourning,"  and  the 
house  of  fasting  adjoins  to  it. 

In  a  word,  fasting  is  the  diet  of  angels,  the  food  and  refection 
of  souls,  and  the  richest  and  highest  aliment  of  grace.  And  he 
who  fasts  for  the  sake  of  religion,  "  hungers  and  thirsts  after  right- 
eousness," without  a  metaphor. 

Fifthly,  Since  every  devout  prayer  is  designed  to  ascend  and 
fly  up  to  heaven ;  as  fasting,  according  to  St.  Austin's  allusion, 
has  given  it  one  wing,  so  let  alms-giving  to  the  poor  supply  it 
with  another.  And  both  these  together  will  not  only  carry  it  up 
triumphant  to  heaven,  but,  if  need  require,  bring  heaven  itself 
down  to  the  devout  person  who  sends  it  thither :  as  while  Cor- 
nelius was  fasting  and  praying,  to  which  he  still  joined  giving 
alms,  an  angel  from  heaven  was  despatched  to  him  with  this  happy 
message,  Acts  x.  4,  "  Thy  prayers  and  thine  alms  are  come  up 
for  a  memorial  before  God."  And  nothing,  certainly,  can  give  a 
greater  efficacy  to  prayer,  and  a  more  peculiar  fitness  for  the  sa- 
crament, than  a  hearty  and  conscientious  practice  of  this  duty : 
without  which  all  that  has  been  mentioned  hitherto  is  nothing 
but  wind  and  air,  pageantry  and  hypocrisy  :  for  if  there  be  any 
truer  measure  of  a  man,  than  by  what  he  does,  it  must  be,  by 
what  he  gives.  He  who  is  truly  pious,  will  account  it  a  wedding 
supper  to  feed  the  hungry,  and  a  wedding  garment  to  clothe  the 
naked.  And  God  and  man  will  find  it  a  very  unfit  garment  for 
such  a  purpose,  which  has  not  in  it  a  purse  or  pocket  for  the 
poor. 

But  so  far  are  some  from  considering  the  poor  before  the  sa- 
crament, that  they  have  been  observed  to  give  nothing  to  the 
poor,  even  at  the  sacrament :  and  though  such,  that  if  rich  clothes 
might  pass  for  a  wedding  garment,  none  could  appear  better  fit- 
ted for  such  a  solemnity  than  themselves ;  yet  some  such,  I  say, 
I  myself  have  seen  at  a  communion,  drop  nothing  into  the  poor's 
bason. 

But,  good  God  !  what  is  the  heart  of  such  worldlings  made  of, 
and  what  a  mind  do  they  bring  with  them  to  so  holy  an  ordi- 
nance !  an  ordinance  in  which  none  can  be  qualified  to  receive, 
whose  heart  does  not  serve  them  also  to  give. 

From  such  indeed  as  have  nothing,  God  expects  nothing  ;  but 
where  God  has  given,  as  I  may  say,  with  both  hands,  and  men 
return  with  none,  such  must  know,  that  the  poor  have  an  action 
of  debt  against  them,  and  that  God  himself  will  undertake  and 
prosecute  their  suit  for  them  ;  and  if  he  does,  since  they  could 
not  find  in  their  hearts  to  proportion  their  charity  to  their  estates, 
nothing  can  be  more  just,  than  for  God  to  proportion  their  estates 
to  their  charity  ;  and  by  so  doing,  he  cannot  well  give  them  a 
shrewder  and  a  shorter  cut. 

In  the  mean  time  let  such  know  further,  that  whosoever  dares, 
upon  so  sacred  and  solemn  an  occasion,  approach  the  altar,  with 


332 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XX. 


bowels  so  shut  up  as  to  leave  nothing  behind  him  there  for  the 
poor,  shall  be  sure  to  carry  something  away  with  him  from  thence 
which  will  do  him  but  little  good. 

Sixthly,  Since  the  charity  of  the  hand  signifies  but  little,  un- 
less it  springs  from  the  heart,  and  flows  through  the  mouth,  let 
the  pious  communicant,  both  in  heart  and  tongue,  thoughts  and 
speech,  put  on  a  charitable,  friendly,  Christian  temper  of  mind 
and  carriage  towards  all.  "  Wrath  and  envy,  malice  and  back- 
biting," and  the  like,  are  direct  contradictions  to  the  very  spirit  of 
Christianity,  and  fit  a  man  for  the  sacrament,  just  as  much  as  a 
stomach  overflowed  with  gall  would  help  him  to  digest  his  meat. 

St.  Paul  often  rebukes  and  schools  such  disturbers  of  the 
world  very  sharply,  correcting  a  base  humour  by  a  very  generous 
rule,  Phil.  ii.  3,  Let  each,"  says  he,  "  esteem  others  better  than 
themselves."  No  man,  doubtless,  shall  ever  be  condemned  of  God 
for  not  judging  his  brother;  for  be  thy  brother  or  neighbor  never 
so  wicked  and  ungodly,  satisfy  thyself  with  this,  that  another's 
wickedness  shall  never  damn  thee  ;  but  thy  own  bitterness  and 
rancour  may :  and,  continued  in,  certainly  will.  Rather  let  this 
want  of  grace  give  thee  occasion  to  exercise  thine,  if  thou  hast 
any,  in  thinking  and  speaking  better  of  him  than  he  deserves  ; 
and,  if  thy  charity  proves  mistaken,  assure  thyself  that  God  will 
accept  the  charity  and  overlook  the  mistake.  But  if  in  judging 
him  whom  thou  hast  nothing  to  do  with,  thou  chancest  to  judge 
one  way,  and  God  and  truth  to  judge  another,  take  heed  of  that 
dreadful  tribunal,  where  it  will  not  be  enough  to  say,  that  "  I 
thought  this,"  or  "  I  heard  that ;"  and  where  no  man's  mistake 
will  be  able  to  warrant  an  unjust  surmise,  and  much  less  justify  a 
false  censure.  Such  would  find  it  much  better  for  them  to  retreat 
inwards,  and  view  themselves  in  the  law  of  God  and  their  own 
consciences  ;  and  that  will  tell  them  their  own  impartially,  that 
will  fetch  off  all  their  paint,  and  show  them  a  foul  face  in  a  true 
glass.  Let  them  read  over  their  catechism,  and  lay  aside  spite  and 
virulence,  gossipping  and  meddling,  calumny  and  detraction ;  and 
let  not  all  about  them  be  villains  and  reprobates,  because  they 
themselves  are  envious  and  forlorn,  idle  and  malicious.  Such 
vermin  are  to  be  looked  upon  by  all  sober  Christians  as  the  very 
cankers  of  society,  and  the  shame  of  any  religion ;  and  so  far  from 
being  fit  to  come  to  the  sacrament,  that  really  they  are  not  fit  to 
come  to  church  ;  and  would  much  better  become  the  house  of 
correction  than  the  house  of  prayer. 

Nevertheless,  as  custom  in  sin  makes  people  blind,  and  blind- 
ness makes  them  bold,  none  come  more  confidently  to  the  sacra- 
ment than  such  wretches.  But  when  I  consider  the  pure  and 
blessed  body  of  our  Saviour  passing  through  the  open  sepulchres 
of  such  throats  into  the  noisome  receptacles  of  their  boiling, 
fermenting  breasts,  it  seems  to  me  a  lively,  but  sad  representation 
of  Christ's  being  first  "  buried,"  and  then  "  descending  into  hell," 


PREPARATION  FOR  THE  HOLY  EUCHARIST. 


333 


Let.  this  diabolical  leaven  therefore  be  purged  out :  and  while  such 
pretend  to  be  so  busy  in  cleaning  their  hearts,  let  them  not  forget 
to  wash  their  mouths  too. 

Seventhly  and  lastly,  As  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  the  pious 
communicant  has  all  along  carried  on,  so  let  him  likewise,  in  the 
issue,  close  his  preparatory  work  with  reading  and  meditation. 
Of  which,  since  the  time  will  not  serve  me  to  speak  more  new, 
I  shall  only  remark  this,  that  they  are  duties  of  so  near  an 
import  to  the  well-being  of  the  soul,  that  the  proper  office  of 
reading  is,  to  take  in  its  spiritual  food,  and  of  meditation,  to 
digest  it. 

And  now  I  hope  that  whosoever  shall  in  the  sincerity  of  his  heart 
acquit  himself  as  to  all  the  foregoing  duties,  and  thereby  prepare 
and  adorn  himself  to  meet  and  converse  with  his  Saviour  at  this 
divine  feast,  shall  never  be  accosted  with  the  thunder  of  that  dread- 
ful imprecation  from  him,  "  Friend,  how  earnest  thou  in  hither,  not 
having  a  wedding  garment  ?" 

But  because  I  am  very  sensible,  that  all  the  particular  in- 
stances of  duty,  which  may  one  way  or  other  contribute  to  the 
fitting  of  men  for  this  great  one,  can  hardly  be  assigned,  and 
much  less  equally  and  universally  applied  where  the  conditions 
of  men  are  so  different,  I  shall  gather  them  all  into  this  one 
plain,  full,  and  comprehensive  rule  ;  namely,  that  all  those  duties 
which  common  Christianity  always  obliges  a  Christian  to,  ought 
most  eminently,  and  with  a  higher  and  more  exalted  pitch  of  devo- 
tion to  be  performed  by  him  before  the  sacrament ;  and  convertibly, 
whatsoever  duties  divines  prescribe  to  be  observed  by  him  with  a 
peculiar  fervour  and  application  of  mind  upon  this  occasion,  ought, 
in  their  proportion,  to  be  practised  by  him  through  the  whole  course 
of  his  Christian  conversation. 

And  this  is  a  solid  and  sure  rule ;  a  rule  that  will  never  deceive 
or  lurch  the  sincere  communicant.  A  rule  that,  by  adding*  dis- 
cretion to  devotion,  will  both  keep  him  from  being  humoursome, 
singular,  and  fantastic  in  his  preparations  before  the  sacrament, 
and,  which  is  worse,  and  must  fatally  unravel  all  again,  from  being 
as  most  are,  loose  and  remiss  after  it ;  and  thinking  that  as  soon  as 
the  sacrament  is  over,  their  great  business  is  done,  whereas  indeed 
it  is  but  begun. 

And  now  I  fear,  that  as  I  have  been  too  long  upon  the  whole,  so 
I  have  been  but  too  brief  upon  so  many,  and  those  such  weighty 
particulars.  But  I  hope  you  will  supply  this  defect,  by  enlarging 
upon  them  in  your  practice  ;  and  make  up  the  omissions  of  the 
pulpit,  by  the  meditations  of  the  closet.  And  God  direct  and  as- 
sist us  all  in  so  concerning  a  work ! 

To  whom  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise, 
might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  evermore. 
Amen. 


334 


SERMON  XXI. 

THE  FATAL  IMPOSTURE  AND  FORCE  OF  WORDS. 
[Preached  May  9,  1686.] 

Isaiah  v.  20. 
Woe  unto  them  that  call  evil  good,  and  good  evil,  §c. 

These  words  contain  in  them  two  things:  1.  A  woe  de- 
nounced ;  and,  2.  The  sin  for  which  it  is  denounced  ;  to  wit,  the 
calling  evil  good,  and  good  evil ;  which  expression  may  be  taken 
two  wavs. 

First,  In  a  judicial  and  more  restrained  sense;  as  it  signifies  the 
pronouncing  of  a  guilty  person  innocent,  and  an  innocent  guilty,  in 
the  course  of  judgment.  But  this  I  take  to  be  too  particular  to 
reach  the  design  of  the  words  here. 

Secondly,  It  may  be  taken  in  a  general  and  more  enlarged 
sense ;  as  it  imports  a  misrepresentation  of  the  qualities  of  things 
and  actions  to  the  common  apprehensions  of  men,  abusing  their 
minds  with  false  notions  ;  and  so  by  this  artifice  making  evil  pass 
for  good,  and  good  for  evil,  in  all  the  great  concerns  of  life. 
Where,  by  good,  I  question  not,  but  good  morally  so  called,  bonum 
honestum,  ought,  chiefly  at  least,  to  be  understood  ;  and  that  the 
good  of  profit  or  pleasure,  the  bonum  utile,  or  jucundum,  hardly 
comes  into  any  account  here,  as  things  extremely  below  the  prin- 
cipal design  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  this  place. 

It  is  wonderful  to  consider,  that  since  good  is  the  natural  and 
proper  object  which  all  human  choice  is  carried  out  to  ;  and  evil, 
that  which  with  all  its  might  it  shuns  and  flies  from  :  and  since 
withal  there  is  that  controlling  worth  and  beauty  in  goodness, 
that  as  such,  the  will  cannot  but  like  and  desire  it ;  and,  on  the 
other  side,  that  odious  deformity  in  vice,  that  it  never  so  much 
as  offers  itself  to  the  affections  or  practice  of  mankind,  but  under 
the  disguise  and  colours  of  the  other :  and  since  all  this  is  easily 
discernible  by  the  ordinary  discourses  of  the  understanding ;  and 
lastly,  since  nothing  passes  into  the  choice  of  the  will,  but  as  it 
comes  conveyed  and  warranted  by  the  understanding,  as  worthy 
of  its  choice  ;  I  say,  it  is  wonderful  to  consider,  that  notwith- 
standing- all  this,  the  lives  and  practices  of  the  generality  of  men, 
in  which  men  certainly  should  be  most  in  earnest,  are  almost 
wholly  taken  up  in  a  passionate  pursuit  of  what  is  evil,  and  in  an 
equal  neglect,  if  not  also  an  abhorrence,  of  what  is  good.  This 
is  certainly  so  ;  and  experience,  which  is  neither  to  be  confuted  nor 
denied,  does  every  minute  prove  the  sad  truth  of  this  assertion. 


OF  THE  FATAL  IMPOSTURE  AND  FORCE  OF  WORDS.  335 

But  now,  what  shall  be  the  cause  of  all  this  ?  For  so  great, 
so  constant,  and  so  general  a  practice,  must  needs  have,  not  only 
a  cause,  but  also  a  great,  a  constant,  and  a  general  cause  ;  a  cause 
every  way  commensurate  to  such  an  effect :  and  this  cause  must 
of  necessity  be  from  one  of  those  two  commanding  powers  of  the 
soul,  the  understanding,  or  the  will.  As  for  the  will,  though  its 
liberty  be  such,  that  a  suitable  or  proper  good  being  proposed  to 
it,  it  has  a  power  to  refuse  or  not  to  choose  it ;  yet  it  has  no 
power  to  choose  evil,  considered  absolutely  as  evil ;  this  being 
directly  against  the  nature  and  natural  method  of  its  workings. 

Nevertheless  it  is  but  too  manifest,  that  things  evil,  extremely 
evil,  are  both  readily  chosen  and  eagerly  pursued  and  practised 
by  it.  And  therefore  it  must  needs  be  from  that  other  govern- 
ing faculty  of  the  soul,  the  understanding,  which  represents  to 
the  will  things  really  evil  under  the  notion  and  character  of  good. 
And  this,  this  is  the  true  source  and  original  of  this  great  mis- 
chief. The  will  chooses,  follows,  and  embraces  things  evil  and 
destructive  ;  but  it  is  because  the  understanding  first  tells  it  that 
they  are  good  and  wholesome,  and  fit  to  be  chosen  by  it.  One 
man  gives  another  a  cup  of  poison,  a  thing  as  terrible  as  death  ; 
but  at  the  same  time  he  tells  him  that  it  is  a  cordial,  and  so  he 
drinks  it  off,  and  dies. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  this  day,  there  was  never 
any  great  villany  acted  by  men,  but  it  was  in  the  strength  of 
some  great  fallacy  put  upon  their  minds  by  a  false  representation 
of  evil  for  good,  or  good  for  evil.  "  In  the  day  that  thou  eatest 
thereof,  thou  shalt  surely  die,"  says  God  to  Adam  ;  and  so  long 
as  Adam  believed  this,  he  did  not  eat.  But,  says  the  devil,  in 
the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof,  thou  shalt  be  so  far  from  surely 
dying,  that  thou  shalt  be  immortal,  and  from  a  man  grow  into  an 
angel ;  and  upon  this  different  account  of  the  thing  he  presently 
took  the  fruit,  and  ate  mortality,  misery,  and  destruction  to  him- 
self and  his  whole  posterity. 

And  now,  can  there  be  a  woe  or  curse  in  all  the  stores  and 
magazines  of  vengeance,  equal  to  the  malignity  of  such  a  prac- 
tice ;  of  which  one  single  instance  could  involve  all  mankind, 
past,  present,  and  to  come,  in  one  universal  and  irreparable  con- 
fusion ?  God  commanded  and  told  man  what  was  good,  but  the 
devil  surnamed  it  evil,  and  thereby  baffled  the  command,  turned 
the  world  topsy-turvy,  and  brought  a  new  chaos  upon  the  whole 
creation. 

But  that  I  may  give  a  more  full  discussion  of  the  sense  and 
design  of  the  words,  I  shall  do  it  under  these  following  particu- 
lars :  as, 

I.  I  shall  give  you  some  general  account  of  the  nature  of  good 
and  evil,  and  the  reason  upon  which  they  are  founded. 

II.  I  shall  show  that  the  way  by  which  good  and  evil  com- 


336  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  XXI. 

raonly  operate  upon  the  mind  of  man,  is  by  those  respective 
names  or  appellations  by  which  they  are  notified  and  conveyed  to 
the  mind.  And, 

III.  And  lastly,  I  shall  show  the  mischief,  directly,  naturally, 
and  unavoidably  following  from  the  misapplication  and  confusion 
of  those  names. 

And  I  hope,  by  going  over  all  these  particulars,  you  may  re- 
ceive some  tolerable  satisfaction  about  this  great  subject  which 
we  have  now  before  us. 

I.  And  first  for  the  nature  of  good  and  evil,  what  they  are,  and 
upon  what  they  are  founded.  The  knowledge  of  this  I  look  upon 
as  the  foundation  and  ground- work  of  all  those  rules,  that  either 
moral  philosophy  or  divinity  can  give  for  the  direction  of  the  lives 
and  practices  of  men ;  and  consequently  ought  to  be  reckoned  as 
a  first  principle ;  and  that  such  a  one,  that,  for  ought  I  see,  the 
thorough  speculation  of  good  will  be  found  much  more  difficult 
than  the  practice.  But  when  we  shall  have  once  given  some  ac- 
count of  the  nature  of  good,  that  of  evil  will  be  known  by  con- 
sequence ;  as  being  only  a  privation  or  absence  of  good,  in  a  sub- 
ject capable  of  it  and  proper  for  it. 

Now  good,  in  the  general  nature  and  notion  of  it,  over  and  above 
the  bare  being  of  a  thing,  connotes  also  a  certain  suitableness  or 
agreeableness  of  it  to  some  other  thing :  according  to  which 
general  notion  of  good,  applied  to  the  particular  nature  of  moral 
goodness,  upon  which  only  we  now  insist,  a  thing  or  action  is  said 
to  be  morally  good  or  evil,  as  it  is  agreeable  or  disagreeable  to 
right  reason,  or  to  a  rational  nature.  And  as  right  reason  is  nothing 
else  but  the  understanding  or  mind  of  man  discoursing  and  judging 
of  things  truly,  and  as  they  are  in  themselves ;  and  as  all  truth  is 
unchangeably  the  same  (that  proposition  which  is  true  at  any  time 
being  so  for  ever) ;  so  it  must  follow,  that  the  moral  goodness  or 
evil  of  men's  actions,  which  consist  in  their  conformity  or  incon- 
formity  to  right  reason,  must  be  also  eternal,  necessary,  and  un- 
changeable. So  that,  as  that  which  is  right  reason,  at  any  time  or 
in  any  case,  is  always  right  reason  with  relation  to  the  same  time 
and  case  ;  in  like  manner,  that  which  is  morally  good  or  evil  at 
any  time  or  in  any  case,  since  it  takes  its  whole  measure  from  right 
reason,  must  be  also  eternally  and  unchangeably  a  moral  good  or 
evil,  with  relation  to  that  time  and  to  that  case.  For  propositions 
concerning  the  goodness,  as  well  as  concerning  the  truth  of  things, 
are  necessary  and  perpetual. 

But  you  will  say,  may  not  the  same  action,  as  for  instance,  the 
killing  of  a  man,  be  sometimes  morally  good,  and  sometimes 
morally  evil  ?  to  wit,  good  when  it  is  the  execution  of  justice  upon 
a  malefactor  ;  and  evil  when  it  is  the  taking  away  the  life  of  an 
innocent  person  ? 

To  this  I  answer,  that  this  indeed  is  true  of  actions  considered 


THE  FATAL  IMPOSTURE  AND  FORCE  OF  WORDS.  337 


in  their  general  nature  or  kind,  but  not  considered  in  their  parti- 
cular individual  instances.  For,  generally  speaking,  to  take  away 
the  life  of  a  man  is  neither  morally  good  nor  morally  evil,  but  ca- 
pable of  being  either,  as  the  circumstances  of  things  shall  determine 
it ;  but  every  particular  act  of  killing  is  of  necessity  accompanied 
with  and  determined  by  several  circumstances,  which  actually  and 
unavoidably  constitute  and  denominate  it  either  good  or  evil.  And 
that  which,  being  performed  under  such  and  such  circumstances,  is 
morally  good  cannot  possibly,  under  the  same  circumstances,  ever 
be  morally  evil :  and  so  on  the  contrary. 

From  whence  we  infer  the  villanous  falsehood  of  two  assertions, 
held  and  maintained  by  some  persons,  and  too  much  countenanced 
by  some  others  in  the  world.  As, 

First,  That  good  and  evil,  honest  and  dishonest,  are  not 
qualities  existent  or  inherent  in  things  themselves,  but  only 
founded  in  the  opinions  of  men  concerning  things.  So  that  any 
thing  or  action  that  has  gained  the  general  approbation  of  any 
people  or  society  of  men,  ought,  in  respect  of  those  persons,  to  be 
esteemed  morally  good,  or  honest;  and  whatsoever  falls  under 
their  general  disapprobation,  ought,  upon  the  same  account,  to  be 
reckoned  morally  evil,  or  dishonest ;  which  also  they  would  seem 
to  prove  from  the  very  signification  of  the  word  honestus  ;  which 
originally  and  strictly  signifies  no  more  than  creditable,  and  is  but 
a  derivative  from  honor  which  signifies  credit  or  honour ;  and 
according  to  the  opinion  of  some,  we  know,  that  is  lodged  only  in 
the  esteem  and  thoughts  of  those  who  pay  it,  and  not  in  the  thing 
or  person  whom  it  is  paid  to.  Thus,  for  example,  thieving, 
or  robbing,  was  accounted  amongst  the  Spartans  a  gallant, 
worthy,  and  a  creditable  thing,  and  consequently,  according  to  the 
principle  which  we  have  mentioned,  thievery,  amongst  the  Spar- 
tans, was  a  practice  morally  good  and  honest.  Thus  also,  both 
with  the  Grecians  and  the  Romans,  it  was  held  a  magnanimous  and 
highly  laudable  act,  for  a  man,  under  any  great  or  insuperable 
misery  or  distress,  to  put  an  end  to  his  own  life  ;  and  accordingly, 
with  those  who  had  such  thoughts  of  it,  that  which  we  call 
self-murder,  was  properly  a  good,  an  honest,  and  a  virtuous 
action.  And  persons  of  the  highest  and  most  acknowledged 
probity  and  virtue  amongst  them,  such  as  Marcus  Cato  and 
Pomponius  Atticus,  actually  did  it,  and  stand  celebrated  both 
by  their  orators  and  historians  for  so  doing.  And  I  could  also 
instance  in  other  actions  of  a  fouler  and  more  unnatural  hue, 
which  yet  from  the  approbation  and  credit  they  have  found  in 
some  countries  and  places,  have  passed  for  good  "morality  in  those 
places  :  but  out  of  respect  to  common  humanity,  as  well  as  divinity, 
I  shall  pass  them  over.  And  thus  much  for  the  first  assertion  or 
opinion. 

Secondly,  The  second  opinion  or  position  is,  that  good  and 
evil,  honest  and  dishonest,  are  originally  founded  in  the  laws  and 
Vol.  I. — 43  2  F 


338  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  XXI. 

constitutions  of  the  sovereign  civil  power,  enjoining  some  things 
or  actions  and  prohibiting  others.  So  that  when  any  thing  is 
found  conducing  to  the  welfare  of  the  public,  and  thereupon 
comes  to  be  enacted  by  governors  into  a  law,  it  is  forthwith 
thereby  rendered  morally  good  and  honest ;  and,  on  the  contrary, 
evil  and  dishonest,  when  upon  its  contrariety  to  the  public 
welfare,  it  stands  prohibited  and  condemned  by  the  same  public 
authority. 

This  was  the  opinion  heretofore  of  Epicurus,  as  it  is  repre- 
sented by  Gassendus,  who  understood  his  notions  too  well  to 
misrepresent  them  ;  and  lately  of  one  amongst  ourselves,  a  less 
philosopher,  though  the  greater  heathen  of  the  two,  the  infamous 
author  of  the  Leviathan.  And  the  like  lewd,  scandalous,  and 
immoral  doctrine,  or  worse,  if  possible,  may  be  found  in  some 
writers  of  another  kind  of  note  and  character;  whom,  one  would 
have  thought,  not  only  religion,  but  shame  of  the  world  might  have 
taught  better  things. 

Such  as,  for  instance,  Bellarmine  himself,  who  in  his  4th  book 
and  5th  chapter,  De  Pontifice  Romano,  has  this  monstrous  pas- 
sage :  "  That  if  the  pope  should  through  error  or  mistake  com- 
mand vices  and  prohibit  virtues,  the  church  would  be  bound 
in  conscience  to  believe  vice  to  be  good,  and  virtue  evil.  I  shall 
give  you  the  whole  passage  in  his  own  words  to  a  tittle  :  "  Fides 
catholica  docet  oranem  virtutem  esse  bonam,  omne  vitium  esse 
malum.  Si  autem  erraret  papa,  praeeipiendo  vitia  vel  pro- 
hibendo  virtutes,  teneretur  ecclesia  credere  vitia  esse  bona  et 
virtutes  malas,  nisi  vellet  contra  conscientiam  peccare."  Good 
God !  that  any  thing  that  wears  the  name  of  a  Christian,  or  but 
of  a  man  should  venture  to  own  such  a  villanous,  impudent, 
and  blasphemous  assertion  in  the  face  of  the  world,  as  this ! 
What!  must  murder,  adultery,  theft,  fraud,  extortion,  perjury, 
drunkenness,  rebellion,  and  the  like,  pass  for  good  and  com- 
mendable actions,  and  fit  to  be  practised  ?  And  mercy,  chastity, 
justice,  truth,  temperance,  loyalty,  and  sincere  dealing,  be  ac- 
counted things  utterly  evil,  immoral,  and  not  to  be  followed  by 
men,  in  case  the  pope,  who  is  generally  weak,  and  almost  always 
a  wicked  man,  should,  by  his  mistake  and  infallible  ignorance, 
command  the  former  and  forbid  the  latter  ?  Did  Christ  himself 
ever  assume  such  a  power,  as  to  alter  the  morality  of  actions,  and 
to  transform  vice  into  virtue,  and  virtue  into  vice  by  his  bare 
word  ?  Certainly  never  did  a  grosser  paradox,  or  a  wickeder  sen- 
tence drop  from  the  mouth  or  pen  of  any  mortal  man,  since  reason 
or  religion  had  any  being  in  the  world. 

And  I  must  confess,  I  have  often  with  great  amazement  won- 
dered how  it  could  possibly  come  from  a  person  of  so  great  a 
reputation  both  for  learning  and  virtue  too  as  the  world  allows 
Bellarmine  to  have  been.  But  when  men  give  themselves  over 
to  the  defence  of  wicked  interests  and  false  propositions,  it  is 


THE    FATAL  IMPOSTURE  AND   FORCE  OF  WORDS.  339 


just  with  God  to  smite  the  greatest  abilities  with  the  greatest  in- 
fatuations. 

But  as  for  these  two  positions  or  assertions,  That  the  moral 
pood  or  evil,  the  honesty  or  dishonest)-  of  human  actions,  should 
depend  either  upon  the  opinions  or  upon  the  laws  of  men ;  they 
are  certainly  false  in  themselyes,  because  they  are  infinitely 
absurd  in  their  consequences.  Some  of  which  are  such  as 
these.  As, 

First,  If  the  moral  goodness  or  eyil  of  men's  actions  were 
originally  founded  in,  and  so  proceeded  wholly  from  the  opinions 
or  laws  of  men,  then  it  would  follow,  that  they  must  change  and 
vary  according  to  the  change  and  difference  of  the  opinions  and 
laws  of  men  :  and  consequently,  that  the  same  action,  under 
exactly  the  same  circumstances,  may  be  morally  good  one  day, 
and  morally  evil  another ;  and  morally  good  in  one  place,  and 
morally  eyil  in  another  ;  forasmuch  as  the  same  sovereign  autho- 
rity may  enact  or  make  a  law,  commanding  such  or  such  an  action 
to-day,  and  a  quite  contrary  law  forbidding  the  same  action  to- 
morrow ;  and  the  very  same  action,  under  the  same  circumstances, 
may  be  commanded  by  law  in  one  country,  and  prohibited  by  law 
in  another.  Which  being  so,  the  consequence  is  manifest,  and 
the  absurdity*  of  the  consequent  intolerable. 

Secondly,  If  the  moral  goodness  or  evil  of  men's  actions  de- 
pended originally  upon  human  laws,  then  those  laws  themselves 
could  neither  be  morally  good  nor  evil  :  the  consequence  is 
evident ;  because  those  laws  are  not  commanded  or  prohibited  by 
any  antecedent  human  laws ;  and  consequently,  if  the  moral 
goodness  or  evil  of  any  act  were  to  be  derived  only  from  a  pre- 
cedent human  law,  laws  themselves,  not  supposing  a  dependence 
upon  other  precedent  human  laws,  could  have  no  moral  goodness 
or  evil  in  them.  AYhich  to  assert  of  any  human  act,  such  as  all 
human  laws  essentially  are  and  must  be,  is  certainly  a  very  gross 
absurdity. 

Thirdly,  If  the  moral  goodness  or  evil  of  men's  actions  were 
sufficiently  derived  from  human  laws  or  constitutions,  then,  upon 
supposal  that  a  divine  law  should,  as  it  often  does,  command  what 
is  prohibited  by  human  laws,  and  prohibit  what  is  commanded  by 
them,  it  would  follow,  that  either  such  commands  and  prohibitions 
of  the  divine  law  do  not  at  all  affect  the  actions  of  men  in  point 
of  their  morality-,  so  as  to  render  them  either  good  or  evil :  or  that 
the  same  action,  at  the  same  time,  may,  in  respect  of  the  divine 
law  commanding  it,  be  morally  good  ;  and  in  respect  of  a  human 
law  forbidding  it,  be  morally  evil.  Than  which  consequence, 
nothing  can  be  more  clear,  nor  withal  more  absurd. 

And  many  more  of  the  like  nature,  I  could  easily  draw  forth, 
and  lay  before  you.  Every  false  principle  or  proposition  being 
sure  to  be  attended  with  a  numerous  train  of  absurdities. 

But,  as  to  the  subject-matter  now  in  hand;  so  far  is  the  mo- 


340 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXI. 


rality  of  human  actions,  as  to  the  goodness  or  evil  of  them,  from 
being  founded  in  any  human  law,  that  in  very  many,  and  those 
the  principal  instances  of  human  action,  it  is  not  originally  founded 
in,  or  derived  from,  so  much  as  any  positive  divine  law.  There 
being  a.  jus  naturals  certainly  antecedent  to  all  jus  positivum  either 
human  or  divine ;  and  that  such  as  results  from  the  very  nature 
and  being  of  things,  as  they  stand  in  a  certain  habitude  or  relation 
to  one  another  :  to  which  relation  whatsoever  is  done  agreeably, 
is  morally  and  essentially  good  ;  and  whatsoever  is  done  otherwise 
is,  at  the  same  rate,  morally  evil. 

And  this  I  shall  exemplify  in  those  two  grand  comprehensive 
moral  duties,  which  man  is  for  ever  obliged  to,  his  duty  towards 
God,  and  his  duty  towards  his  neighbour. 

And  first,  for  his  duty  towards  God ;  which  is,  to  love  and 
obey  him  with  all  his  heart  and  all  his  soul.  It  is  certain  that  for 
a  rational,  intelligent  creature  to  conform  himself  to  the  will  of 
God  in  all  things,  carries  in  it  a  moral  rectitude,  or  goodness  ;  and 
to  disobey  or  oppose  his  will  in  any  thing,  imports  a  moral  obliquity, 
before  God  ever  deals  forth  any  particular  law  or  command  to  such 
a  creature  :  there  being  a  general  obligation  upon  man  to  obey  all 
God's  laws,  whensoever  they  shall  be  declared,  before  any  par- 
ticular instance  of  law  comes  actually  to  be  declared.  But  now 
whence  is  this  ?  Why  from  that  essential  suitableness  which 
obedience  has  to  the  relation  which  is  between  a  rational  creature 
and  his  Creator.  Nothing  in  nature  being  more  irrational  and 
irregular,  and  consequently  more  immoral,  than  for  an  intelligent 
being  to  oppose  or  disobey  that  sovereign,  supreme  will,  which 
gave  him  that  being,  and  has  withal  the  sole  and  absolute  disposal 
of  him  in  all  his  concerns.  So  that  there  needs  no  positive  law 
or  sanction  of  God  to  stamp  an  obliquity  upon  such  a  disobedience; 
since  it  cleaves  to  it  essentially,  and  by  way  of  natural  result  from 
it,  upon  the  account  of  that  utter  unsuitableness  which  disobedienee 
has  to  the  relation  which  man  naturally  and  necessarily  stands  in 
towards  his  Maker. 

And  then,  in  the  next  place,  for  his  duty  to  his  neighbour. 
The  whole  of  which  is  comprised  in  that  great  rule,  i  of  doing 
as  a  man  would  be  done  by.'  We  may  truly  affirm,  that  the 
morality  of  this  rule  does  not  originally  derive  itself  from  those 
words  of  our  Saviour,  Matt.  vii.  12,  "  Whatsoever  ye  would  that 
men  should  do  unto  you,  do  ye  even  so  unto  them  ?"  no,  nor 
yet  from  Moses  or  the  prophets  ;  but  it  is  as  old  as  Adam,  and 
bears  date  with  human  nature  itself ;  as  springing  from  that 
primitive  relation  of  equality,  which  all  men,  as  fellow  creatures 
and  fellow  subjects  to  the  same  supreme  Lord,  bear  to  one  an- 
other, in  respect  of  that  common  right,  which  every  man  has 
equally  to  his  life,  and  to  the  proper  comforts  of  life ;  and  con- 
sequently, to  all  things  naturally  necessary  to  the  support  of 
both. 


THE  FATAL  IMPOSTURE  AND  FORCE  OF  WORDS.  341 

Now,  whatsoever  one  man  has  a  right  to  keep  or  possess,  no 
other  man  can  have  a  right  to  take  from  him.  So  that  no  man 
has  a  right  to  expect  that  from  or  to  do  that  to  another,  which 
that  other  has  not  an  equal  right  to  expect  from  and  to  do  to 
him.  Which  parity  of  right,  as  to  all  things  purely  natural, 
being  undoubtedly  the  result  of  nature  itself,  can  any  thing  be 
inferred  from  thence  more  conformable  to  reason,  and  conse- 
quently of  a  greater  moral  rectitude,  than  that  such  an  equality 
of  right  should  also  cause  an  equality  of  behaviour  between  man 
and  man,  as  to  all  those  mutual  offices  and  intercourses  in  which, 
life  and  the  happiness  of  life  are  concerned  ?  Nothing  certainly 
can  shine  out  and  show  itself  by  the  mere  light  of  reason,  as  a 
higher  and  more  unquestionable  piece  of  morality  than  this,  nor 
as  a  more  confessed  deviation  from  morality  than  the  contrary 
practice. 

From  all  which  discourse,  I  think  we  may  without  presump- 
tion conclude,  that  the  ratio  boni  et  mali,  the  nature  of  good 
and  evil,  as  to  the  principal  instances  of  both,  spring  from  that 
essential  habitude  or  relation,  which  the  nature  of  one  thing 
bears  to  another  by  virtue  of  that  order  which  they  stand  placed 
in  here  in  the  world,  by  the  very  law  and  condition  of  their 
creation;  and  for  that  reason  do  and  must  precede  all  positive 
laws,  sanctions,  or  institutions  whatsoever.  Good  and  evil  are  in 
morality,  as  the  east  and  west  are  in  the  frame  of  the  world  ; 
founded  in  and  divided  by  that  fixed  and  unalterable  situation, 
which  they  have  respectively  in  the  whole  body  of  the  universe  ;  or, 
as  the  right  hand  is  discriminated  from  the  left,  by  a  natural,  neces- 
sary, and  never  to  be  confounded  distinction. 

And  thus  I  have  done  with  the  first  thing  proposed,  and  given 
you  such  an  account  of  the  nature  of  good  and  evil,  as  the  mea- 
sure of  the  present  exercise  and  occasion  would  allow.  Pass  we 
now  to  the 

II.  Which  is  to  show,  That  the  way  by  which  good  and  evil 
generally  operate  upon  the  mind  of  man^  is  by  those  words  or  names 
by  which  they  are  notified  and  conveyed  to  the  mind.  Words  are 
the  signs  and  symbols  of  things  ;  and  as  in  accounts,  ciphers  and 
figures  pass  for  real  sums  ;  so  in  the  course  of  human  affairs, 
words  and  names  pass  for  things  themselves.  For  things,  or 
objects,  cannot  enter  into  the  mind,  as  they  subsist  in  themselves, 
and  by  their  own  natural  bulk  pass  into  the  apprehension ;  but 
they  are  taken  in  by  their  ideas,  their  notions  or  resemblances ; 
which  imprinting  themselves  after  a  spiritual  immaterial  manner 
in  the  imagination,  and  from  thence  under  a  further  refinement, 
passing  into  the  intellect,  are  by  that  expressed  by  certain  words 
or  names  found  out  and  invented  by  the  mind,  for  the  communica- 
tion of  its  conceptions  or  thoughts  to  others.  So  that  as  con- 
ceptions are  the  images  or  resemblances  of  things  to  the  mind 

2f2 


342 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXI. 


within  itself;  in  like  manner  are  words,  or  names,  the  marks, 
tokens,  or  resemblances  of  those  conceptions  to  the  minds  of 
them  whom  we  converse  with :  to,  h  tfj  $uvjj  *Z>V  j„  tjj  tyxy 
rta9*ifidtu>v  ofv/tjSoXa,  being  the  known  maxim  laid  down  by 
the  philosopher,  as  the  first  and  most  fundamental  rule  of  all 
discourse. 

This  therefore  is  certain,  that  in  human  life,  or  conversation, 
words  stand  for  things ;  the  common  business  of  the  world  not 
being  capable  of  being  managed  otherwise.  For  by  these,  men 
come  to  know  one  another's  minds.  By  these  they  covenant  and 
confederate.  By  these  they  buy  and  sell,  they  deal  and  traffic. 
In  short,  words  are  the  great  instruments  both  of  practice  and 
design ;  which,  for  the  most  part,  move  wholly  in  the  strength 
of  them.  Forasmuch  as  it  is  the  nature  of  man  both  to  will  and  to 
do,  according  to  the  persuasion  he  has  of  the  good  and  evil  of  those 
things  that  come  before  him ;  and  to  take  up  his  persuasions  ac- 
cording to  the  representations  made  to  him  of  those  qualities,  by 
their  respective  names  or  appellations. 

This  is  the  true  and  natural  account  of  this  matter ;  and  it  is  all 
that  I  shall  remark  upon  this  second  head.    I  now  proceed  to  the 

III.  Which  is,  to  show  the  mischief  which  directly,  naturally !, 
and  unavoidably  follows  from  the  misapplication  and  confusion 
of  those  names.  And  in  order  to  this,  I  shall  premise  these  two 
considerations : 

1,  That  the  generality  of  mankind  is  wholly  and  absolutely 
governed  by  words  and  names  ;  without,  nay,  for  the  most  part, 
even  against  the  knowledge  men  have  of  things.  The  multitude, 
or  common  rout,  like  a  drove  of  sheep  or  a  herd  of  oxen,  may  be 
managed  by  any  noise  or  cry,  which  their  drivers  shall  accustom 
them  to. 

And  he  who  will  set  up  for  a  skilful  manager  of  the  rabble, 
so  long  as  they  have  but  ears  to  hear,  needs  never  inquire  whether 
they  have  any  understanding  whereby  to  judge ;  but  with  two 
or  three  popular,  empty  words,  such  as  popery  and  superstition, 
right  of  the  subject,  liberty  of  conscience,  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  well 
tuned  and  humoured,  may  whistle  them  backwards  and  forwards, 
upwards  and  downwards,  till  he  is  weary  ;  and  get  upon  their  backs 
when  he  is  so. 

As  for  the  meaning  of  the  word  itself,  that  may  shift  for  itself; 
and  as  for  the  sense  and  reason  of  it,  that  has  little  or  nothing  to 
do  here ;  only  let  it  sound  full  and  round,  and  chime  right  to  the 
humour  which  is  at  present  agog  (just  as  a  big,  long,  rattling 
name  is  said  to  command  even  adoration  from  a  Spaniard),  and 
no  doubt,  with  this  powerful  senseless  engine  the  rabble-driver 
shall  be  able  to  carry  all  before  him,  or  to  draw  all  after  him,  as  he 
pleases.  For  a  plausible  insignificant  word,  in  the  mouth  of  an 
expert  demagogue,  is  a  dangerous  and  a  dreadful  weapon. 


THE    FATAL  IMPOSTURE  AND  FORCE  OF  WORDS.  343 

You  know,  when  Csesar's  army  mutinied,  and  grew  trouble- 
some, no  argument  from  interest  or  reason  could  satisfy  or  ap- 
pease them  :  but  as  soon  as  he  gave  them  the  appellation  of 
Quirites,  the  tumult  was  immediately  hushed  ;  and  all  were  quiet 
and  content,  and  took  that  one  word  in  good  payment  for  all. 
Such  is  the  trivial  slightness  and  levity  of  most  minds.  And 
indeed,  take  any  passion  of  the  soul  of  man,  while  it  is  predomi- 
nant and  afloat,  and,  just  in  the  critical  height  of  it,  nick  it  with 
some  lucky  or  unlucky  word,  and  you  may  as  certainly  overrule  it 
to  your  own  purpose,  as  a  spark  of  fire,  falling  upon  gunpowder, 
will  infallibly  blow  it  up. 

The  truth  is,  he  who  shall  duly  consider  these  matters,  will 
find  that  there  is  a  certain  bewitchery  or  fascination  in  words, 
which  makes  them  operate  with  a  force  beyond  what  we  can 
naturally  give  an  account  of.  For  would  not  a  man  think  ill 
deeds  and  shrewd  turns  should  reach  further  and  strike  deeper 
than  ill  words  ?  And  yet  many  instances  might  be  given,  in 
which  men  have  much  more  easily  pardoned  ill  things  done,  than 
ill  things  said  against  them:  such  a  peculiar  rancour  and  venom 
do  they  leave  behind  them  in  men's  minds,  and  so  much  more 
poisonously  and  incurably  does  the  serpent  bite  with  his  tongue 
than  with  his  teeth. 

Nor  are  men  prevailed  upon  at  this  odd  unaccountable  rate, 
by  bare  words,  only  through  a  defect  of  knowledge  ;  but  some- 
times also  do  they  suffer  themselves  to  be  carried  away  with 
these  puffs  of  wind,  even  contrary  to  knowledge  and  experience 
itself.  For  otherwise,  how  could  men  be  brought  to  surrender 
up  their  reason,  their  interest,  and  their  credit  to  flattery  ?  gross, 
fulsome,  abusive  flattery  ;  indeed  more  abusive  and  reproachful, 
upon  a  true  estimate  of  things  and  persons,  than  the  rudest  scoffs 
and  the  sharpest  invectives.  Yet  so  it  is,  that  though  men  know 
themselves  utterly  void  of  those  qualities  and  perfections,  which 
the  impudent  sycophant,  at  the  same  time,  both  ascribes  to  them, 
and  in  his  sleeve  laughs  at  them  for  believing ;  nay,  though  they 
know  that  the  flatterer  himself  knows  the  falsehood  of  his  own 
flatteries,  yet  they  swallow  the  fallacious  morsel,  love  the  impos- 
tor, and  with  both  arms  hug  the  abuses  ;  and  that  to  such  a 
degree,  that  no  offices  of  friendship,  no  real  services,  shall  be 
able  to  lie  in  the  balance  against  those  luscious  falsehoods,  which 
flattery  shall  feed  the  mind  of  a  fool  in  power  with  ;  the  sweetness 
of  the  one  infinitely  overcomes  the  substance  of  the  other. 

And  therefore  you  shall  seldom  see,  that  such  a  one  cares  to 
have  men  of  worth,  honesty,  and  veracity  about  him  ;  for  such 
persons  cannot  fall  down  and  worship  stocks  and  stones,  though 
they  are  placed  never  so  high  above  them  ;  but  their  yea  is  yea, 
and  their  nay,  nay ;  and  they  cannot  admire  a  fox  for  his  sin 
cerity,  a  wolf  for  his  generosity,  nor  an  ass  for  his  wit  and  inge- 
nuity ;   and  therefore  can   never  be  acceptable  to  those  whose 


344 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXI. 


whole  credit,  interest,  and  advantage  lies  in  their  not  appearing 
to  the  world,  what  they  are  really  in  themselves.  None  are  or 
can  be  welcome  to  such,  but  those  who  speak  paint  and  wash ; 
for  that  is  the  thing  they  love  ;  and  no  wonder,  since  it  is  the 
thing  they  need. 

There  is  hardly  any  rank,  order,  or  degree  of  men,  but  more  or 
less  have  been  captivated  and  enslaved  by  words.  It  is  a  weak- 
ness, or  rather  a  fate,  which  attends  both  high  and  low  ;  the 
statesman  who  holds  the  helm,  as  well  as  the  peasant  who  holds 
the  plough.  So  that,  if  ever  you  find  an  ignoramus  in  place 
and  power,  and  can  have  so  little  conscience,  and  so  much  con- 
fidence, as  to  tell  him  to  his  face,  that  he  has  a  wit  and  an  un- 
derstanding above  all  the  world  beside ;  and  "  that  what  his  own 
reason  cannot  suggest  to  him,  neither  can  the  united  reason  of 
all  mankind  put  together  ;"*  I  dare  undertake,  that,  as  fulsome 
a  dose  as  you  give  him,  he  shall  readily  take  it  down,  and  admit 
the  commendation,  though  he  cannot  believe  the  thing  :  Blanditia, 
etiam  cum  excluduntur,  placent,  says  Seneca.  Tell  him,  that  no 
history  or  antiquity  can  match  his  policies  and  his  conduct ; 
and  presently  the  sot  (because  he  knows  neither  history  nor 
antiquity),  shall  begin  to  "  measure  himself  by  himself"  (which 
is  the  only  sure  way  for  him  not  to  fall  short),  and  so  immediately 
amongst  his  outward  admirers  and  his  inward  despisers,  vouched 
also  by  a  teste  meipso,  he  steps  forth  an  exact  politician  ;  and,  by 
a  wonderful  and  new  way  of  arguing,  proves  himself  no  fool, 
because  forsooth,  the  sycophant  who  tells  him  so,  is  an  egregious 
knave. 

But  to  give  you  yet  a  grosser  instance  of  the  force  of  words, 
and  of  the  extreme  vanity  of  man's  nature  in  being  influenced  by 
them,  hardly  shall  you  meet  with  any  person,  man  or  woman,  so 
aged  or  ill-favoured,  but  if  you  will  venture  to  commend  them  for 
their  comeliness  ;  nay,  and  for  their  youth  too,  though  "  time  out 
of  mind  "  is  written  upon  every  line  of  their  face  ;  yet  they  shall 
take  it  very  well  at  your  hands,  and  begin  to  think  with  them- 
selves, that  certainly  they  have  some  perfections,  which  the  gene- 
rality of  the  world  are  not  so  happy  as  to  be  aware  of. 

But  now,  are  not  these,  think  we,  strange  self-delusions,  and 
yet  attested  by  common  experience  almost  every  day?  But 
whence,  in  the  mean  time,  can  all  this  proceed,  but  from  that 
besotting  intoxication,  which  this  verbal  magic,  as  I  may  so  call 
it,  brings  upon  the  mind  of  man  ?  For  can  any  thing  in  nature 
have  a  more  certain,  deep,  and  undeniable  effect,  than  folly  has 
upon  man's  mind,  and  age  upon  his  body  ?  And  yet  we  see,  that 
in  both  these,  words  are  able  to  persuade  men  out  of  what  they 
find  and  feel,  to  reverse  the  very  impressions  of  sense,  and  to 
amuse  men  with  fancies  and  paradoxes,  even  in  spite  of  nature 
and  experience.    But  since  it  would  be  endless  to  pursue  all  the 

*  The  words  of  a  great  self-opiniator,  and  a  bitter  reviler  of  the  clergy. 


THE  FATAL  IMPOSTURE  AND  FORCE  OF  WORDS. 


345 


particulars  in  which  this  humour  shows  itself ;  whosoever  would 
have  one  full,  lively,  and  complete  view  of  an  empty,  shallow, 
self-opinionated  grandee,  surrounded  by  his  flatterers  (like  a  choice 
dish  of  meat  by  a  company  of  fellows  commending  and  devour- 
ing it  at  the  same  time),  let  him  cast  his  eye  upon  Ahab  in  the 
midst  of  his  false  prophets,  2  Kings  xxii.,  where  we  have  them  all 
with  one  voice  for  giving  him  a  cast  out  of  their  court  prophecy, 
and  sending  him,  in  a  compliment,  to  be  knocked  on  the  head  at 
Ramoth  Gilead.  But,  says  Jehosaphat  (who  smelt  the  para- 
site through  the  prophet,)  in  the  seventh  verse,  "  Is  there  not  a 
prophet  of  the  Lord  besides,  that  we  may  inquire  of  him  ?  Why 
yes,  (says  Ahab),  there  is  yet  one  man  by  whom  we  may  inquire 
of  the  Lord ;  but  I  hate  him,  for  he  doth  not  prophesy  good 
concerning  me,  but  evil."  Ah!  that  was  his  crime;  the  poor 
man  was  so  good  a  subject,  and  so  bad  a  courtier,  as  to  venture 
to  serve  and  save  his  prince,  whether  he  would  or  no ;  for,  it 
seems,  to  give  Ahab  such  warning  as  might  infallibly  have  pre- 
vented his  destruction,  was  esteemed  by  him  evil ;  and  to  push 
him  on  headlong  into  it,  because  he  was  fond  of  it,  was  accounted 
good.  These  were  his  new  measures  of  good  and  evil.  And 
therefore  those  who  knew  how  to  make  their  court  better,  as  the 
word  is,  tell  him  a  bold  lie  in  God's  name,  and  therewith  send 
him  packing  to  his  certain  doom ;  thus  calling  evil  good  at  the 
cost  of  their  prince's  crown  and  his  life  too.  But  what  cared 
they?  they  knew  that  it  would  please,  and  that  was  enough  for 
them  ;  there  being  always  a  sort  of  men  in  the  world  (whom  others 
have  an  interest  to  serve  by)  who  had  rather  a  great  deal  be  pleased, 
than  be  safe.  Strike  them  under  the  fifth  rib,  provided  at  the  same 
time  you  kiss  them  too,  as  Joab  served  Abner,  and  you  may  both 
destroy  and  oblige  them  with  the  same  blow. 

Accordingly,  in  the  thirtieth  of  Isaiah,  we  find  some  arrived  to 
that  pitch  of  sottishness,  and  so  much  in  love  with  their  own 
ruin,  as  to  own  plainly  and  roundly  what  they  would  be  at ;  in 
the  tenth  verse,  "  Prophesy  not  unto  us,"  say  they,  "  right 
things,  but  prophesy  to  us  smooth  things."  As  if  they  had  said, 
6  Do  but  oil  the  razor  for  us,  and  let  us  alone  to  cut  our  own 
throats.'  Such  an  enchantment  is  there  in  words ;  and  so  fine  a 
thing  does  it  seem  to  some  to  be  ruined  plausibly,  and  to  be 
ushered  to  their  destruction  with  panegyric  and  acclamation:  a 
shameful,  though  irrefragable  argument,  of  the  absurd  empire  and 
usurpation  of  wrords  over  things ;  and  that  the  greatest  affairs  and 
most  important  interests  of  the  world,  are  carried  on  by  things,  not 
as  they  are,  but  as  they  are  called. 

And  thus  much  for  the  first  thing  which  I  thought  necessary  to 
premise  to  the  prosecution  of  our  third  particular. 

2.  The  other  thing  to  be  premised  is  this  ;  That  as  the  generality 
of  men  are  wholly  governed  by  names  and  words  ;  so  there 
is  nothing,  in  which  they  are  so  remarkably  and  powerfully  go- 

Vol.  I.— 44 


346 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXI. 


verned  by  them,  as  in  matters,  of  good  and  evil,  so  far  as  these 
qualities  relate  to,  and  affect  the  actions  of  men :  a  thing  cer- 
tainly of  a  most  fatal  and  pernicious  import.  For  though,  in 
matters  of  mere  speculation,  it  is  not  much  the  concern  of  so- 
ciety, whether  or  no  men  proceed  wholly  upon  trust,  and  take 
the  bare  word  of  others  for  what  they  assent  to ;  since  it  is  not 
much  material  to  the  welfare  either  of  government  or  of  them- 
selves, whether  they  opine  right  or  wrong,  and  whether  they  be 
philosophers  or  no.  But  it  is  vastly  the  concern  both  of  govern- 
ment and  of  themselves  too,  whether  they  be  morally  good  or 
bad,  honest,  or  dishonest.  And  surely  it  is  hardly  possible  for 
men  to  make  it  their  business  to  be  virtuous  or  honest,  while 
vices  are  called  and  pointed  out  to  them  by  the  names  of  virtues ; 
and  they  all  the  while  suppose  the  nature  of  things  to  be  truly  and 
faithfully  signified  by  their  names,  and  thereupon  believe  as 
they  hear,  and  practise  as  they  believe.  And  that  this  is  the 
course  of  much  the  greatest  part  of  the  world,  thus  to  take  up 
their  persuasions  concerning  good  and  evil  by  an  implicit  faith,  and 
a  full  acquiescence  in  the  word  of  those  who  shall  represent 
things  to  them  under  these  characters,  I  shall  prove  by  two  rea- 
sons ;  and  those  such  as,  I  fear,  will  not  only  be  found  reasons  to 
evince  that  men  actually  do  so ;  but  also  sad  demonstrations  to  con- 
clude that  they  are  never  like  to  do  otherwise. 

First,  The  first  of  which  shall  be  taken  from  that  similitude, 
neighbourhood  and  affinity,  which  is  between  vice  and  virtue, 
good  and  evil,  in  several  notable  instances  of  each.  For,  though 
the  general  natures  and  definitions  of  these  qualities  are  suffi- 
ciently distant  from  one  another,  and  so  in  danger  of  a  pro- 
miscuous confusion ;  yet  when  they  come  to  subsist  in  particulars, 
and  to  be  clothed  and  attended  with  several  accidents  and  circum- 
stances, the  case  is  hereby  much  altered ;  for  then  the  discern- 
ment is  neither  so  easy,  nor  yet  so  certain.  Thus  it  is  not 
always  so  obvious  to  distinguish  between  an  act  of  liberality  and 
an  act  of  prodigality :  between  an  act  of  courage  and  an  act  of 
rashness ;  an  act  of  pusillanimity  and  an  act  of  great  modesty  or 
humanity ;  nay,  and  some  have  had  the  good  luck  to  have  their 
very  dulness  dignified  with  the  name  of  gravity,  and  to  be  no 
small  gainers  by  the  mistake.  And  many  more  such  actions  of 
dubious  quality  might  be  instanced  in,  too  numerous  to  be  here 
recounted  or  insisted  on.  In  all  which,  and  the  like,  it  requiring 
too  great  a  sagacity  for  vulgar  minds  to  draw  the  line  nicely  and 
exactly  between  vice  and  virtue,  and  to  adjust  the  due  limits  of 
each ;  it  is  no  wonder  if  most  men  attempt  not  a  laborious 
scrutiny  into  things  themselves,  but  only  take  names  and  words 
as  they  first  come,  and  so  without  any  more  ado  rest  in  them  :  it 
being  so  much  easier,  in  all  disquisitions  of  truth  to  suppose,  than 
to  prove  ;  and  to  believe,  than  to  distinguish. 

Secondly,  The  other  reason  of  the  same  shall  be  taken  from  the 


THE  FATAL  IMPOSTURE  AND  FORCE  OF  WORDS.  347 

great  and  natural  inability  of  most  men  to  judge  exactly  of 
things  ;  which  makes  it  very  difficult  for  them  to  discern  the  real 
good  and  evil  of  what  comes  before  them  ;  to  consider  and  weigh 
circumstances,  to  scatter  and  look  through  the  mists  of  error,  and 
so  separate  appearances  from  realities.  For  the  greater  part  of 
mankind  is  but  slow  and  dull  of  apprehension  ;  and  therefore,  in 
many  cases  under  a  necessity  of  seeing  with  other  men's  eyes, 
and  judging  with  other  men's  understanding.  Nature  having 
manifestly  contrived  things  so,  that  the  vulgar,  and  the  many,  are 
fit  only  to  be  led  or  driven,  but  by  no  means  fit  to  guide  or  direct 
themselves. 

To  which  their  want  of  judging  or  discerning  abilities,  we  may 
add  also  their  want  of  leisure  and  opportunity  to  apply  their 
minds  to  such  a  serious  and  attentive  consideration,  as  may  let 
them  into  a  full  discovery  of  the  true  goodness  and  evil  of  things, 
which  are  qualities  which  seldom  display  themselves  to  the  first 
view  :  for  in  most  things  good  and  evil  lie  shuffled  and  thrust  up 
together  in  a  confused  heap ;  and  it  is  study  and  intention  of 
thought  which  must  draw  them  forth,  and  range  them  under 
their  distinct  heads.  But  there  can  be  no  study  without  time ; 
and  the  mind  must  abide  and  dwell  upon  things,  or  be  always  a 
stranger  to  the  inside  of  them.  "Through  desire,"  says  Solomon, 
u  a  man  having  separated  himself,  seeketh  and  intermeddleth 
with  all  wisdom,"  Prov.  xviii.  1.  There  must  be  leisure  and  a 
retirement,  solitude  and  a  sequestration  of  a  man's  self  from  the 
noise  and  toil  of  the  world  :  for  truth  scorns  to  be  seen  by  eyes 
too  much  fixed  upon  inferior  objects.  It  lies  too  deep  to  be 
fetched  up  with  the  plough,  and  too  close  to  be  beaten  down  with 
the  hammer.  It  dwells  not  in  shops  or  work-houses ;  nor  till  the 
late  age  was  it  ever  known,  that  any  one  served  seven  years  to  a 
smith  or  a  tailor,  that  he  might  at  the  end  thereof  proceed 
master  of  any  other  arts,  but  such  as  those  trades  taught  him  ; 
and  much  less  that  he  should  commence  doctor  or  divine  from  the 
shop-board  or  the  anvil ;  or  from  whistling  to  a  team,  come  to 
preach  to  a  congregation. 

These  were  the  peculiar,  extraordinary  privileges  of  the  late 
blessed  times  of  light  and  inspiration :  otherwise  nature  will  still 
hold  on  its  old  course,  never  doing  any  thing  which  is  considera- 
ble without  the  assistance  of  its  two  great  helps,  art  and  industry. 
But  above  all,  the  knowledge  of  what  is  good  and  what  is  evil, 
what  ought  and  what  ought  not  to  be  done,  in  the  several  offices 
and  relations  of  life,  is  a  thing  too  large  to  be  compassed,  and  too 
hard  to  be  mastered,  without  brains  and  study,  parts  and  con- 
templation ;  which  Providence  never  thought  fit  to  make  much 
the  greatest  part  of  makind  possessors  of.  And  consequently 
those  who  are  not  so,  must,  for  the  knowledge  of  most  things, 
depend  upon  those  who  are ;  and  receive  their  information  con- 
cerning good  and  evil  from  such  verbal  or  nominal  representa- 
tions of  each,  as  shall  be  imparted  to  them  by  those,  whose  ability 


348 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXI. 


and  integrity  they  have  cause  to  rely  upon  for  a  faithful  account 
of  these  matters. 

And  thus  from  these  two  great  considerations  premised ; 
1.  That  the  generality  of  the  world  are  wholly  governed  by 
words  and  names ;  and  2.  That  the  chief  instance  in  which  they 
are  so,  is  in  such  words  and  names  as  import  the  good  or  evil  of 
things  ;  (which  both  the  difficulty  of  things  themselves,  and  the 
very  condition  of  human  nature,  constrains  much  the  greatest 
part  of  mankind  to  take  wholly  upon  trust) ;  I  say,  from  these 
two  considerations  must  needs  be  inferred,  what  a  fatal,  devilish, 
and  destructive  effect  the  misapplication  and  confusion  of  these 
great  governing  names  of  good  and  evil,  must  inevitably  have 
upon  the  societies  of  men.  The  comprehensive  mischief  of  which 
will  appear  from  this,  that  it  takes  in  both  those  ways,  by  which 
the  greatest  evils  and  calamities  which  are  incident  to  man,  do 
directly  break  in  upon  him. 

The  first  of  which  is  by  his  being  deceived,  and  the  second  by 
his  being  misrepresented.  And  first  for  the  first  of  these.  I  do 
not  in  the  least  doubt,  but  if  a  true  and  just  computation  could 
be  made  of  all  the  miseries  and  misfortunes  that  befall  men  in 
this  world,  two  thirds  of  them,  at  least,  would  be  found  resolvable 
into  their  being  deceived  by  false  appearances  of  good :  first 
deluding  their  apprehensions,  and  then  by  natural  consequence 
perverting  their  actions,  from  which  are  the  great  issues  of  life 
and  death  ;  since,  according  to  the  eternal  sanction  of  God  and 
nature,  such  as  a  man's  actions  are  for  good  or  evil,  such  ought 
also  his  condition  to  be  for  happiness  or  misery. 

Now  all  deception  in  the  course  of  life  is  indeed  nothing  else 
but  a  lie  reduced  to  practice,  and  falsehood  passing  from  words 
into  things. 

For  is  a  man  impoverished  and  undone  by  the  purchase  of  an 
estate  ?  Why,  it  is  because  he  bought  an  imposture,  paid  down 
his  money  for  a  lie,  and  by  the  help  of  the  best  and  ablest  counsel, 
forsooth,  that  could  be  had,  took  a  bad  title  for  a  good. 

Is  a  man  unfortunate  in  marriage  ?  Still  it  is  because  he  was 
deceived  ;  and  put  his  neck  in  the  snare,  before  he  put  it  into  the 
yoke,  and  so  took  that  for  virtue  and  affection,  which  was 
nothing  but  vice  in  a  disguise,  and  a  devilish  humour  under  a 
demure  look. 

Is  he  again  unhappy  and  calamitous  in  his  friendships  ?  Why, 
in  this  also  it  is  because  he  built  upon  the  air,  and  trod  upon  a 
quicksand,  and  took  that  for  kindness  and  sincerity,  which  was  only 
malice  and  design,  seeking  an  opportunity  to  ruin  him  effectually, 
and  to  overturn  him  in  all  his  interests  by  the  sure  but  fatal  handle 
of  his  own  good  nature  and  credulity. 

And  lastly,  is  a  man  betrayed,  lost,  and  blown  by  such  agents 
and  instruments  as  he  employs  in  his  greatest  and  nearest  con- 
cerns ?  Why,  still  the  cause  of  it  is  from  this,  that  he  misplaced 
his  confidence,  took  hypocris}'  for  fidelity,  and  so  relied  upon  the 


THE  FATAL  IMPOSTURE  AND  FORCE  OF  WORDS. 


349 


services  of  a  pack  of  villains,  who  designed  nothing  but  their  own 
game,  and  to  stake  him,  while  they  played  for  themselves. 

But  not  to  mention  any  more  particulars,  there  is  no  estate, 
office,  or  condition  of  life  whatsoever,  but  groans  and  labours 
under  the  killing  truth  of  what  we  have  -asserted.  For  it  is  this 
which  supplants  not  only  private  persons,  but  kingdoms  and  go- 
vernments, by  keeping  them  ignorant  of  their  own  strengths  and 
weaknesses ;  and  it  is  evident  that  governments  may  be  equally 
destroyed  by  an  ignorance  of  either.  For  the  weak,  by  thinking 
themselves  strong,  are  induced  to  venture  and  proclaim  war  against 
that  which  ruins  them  ;  and  the  strong,  by  conceiting  themselves 
weak,  are  thereby  rendered  as  unactive,  and  consequently  as  use- 
less, as  if  they  really  were  so.  In  Luke  xiv.  31,  when  "  a  king 
with  ten  thousand  is  to  meet  a  king  coming  against  him  with 
twenty  thousand,"  our  Saviour  advises  him,  before  he  ventures  the 
issue  of  a  battle,  "  to  sit  down  and  consider."  But  now  a  false 
glossing  parasite  would  give  him  quite  another  kind  of  counsel,  and 
bid  him  only  recken  his  ten  thousand  forty,  call  his  fool-hardiness 
valour,  and  then  he  may  go  on  boldly,  because  blindly,  and  by 
mistaking  himself  for  a  lion,  come  to  perish  like  an  ass. 

In  short,  it  is  this  great  plague  of  the  world,  deception,  which 
takes  wrong  measures,  and  makes  false  musters  almost  in  every 
thing ;  which  sounds  a  retreat  instead  of  a  charge,  and  a  charge 
instead  of  a  retreat  ;  which  overthrows  whole  armies  ;  and  some- 
times by  one  lying  word  treacherously  cast  out,  turns  the  fate  and 
fortune  of  states  and  empires,  and  lays  the  most  flourishing  mo- 
narchies in  the  dust.  A  blind  guide  is  certainly  a  great  mischief  ; 
but  a  guide  that  blinds  those  whom  he  should  lead,  is  undoubtedly 
a  much  greater. 

Secondly,  The  other  great  and  undoing  mischief  which  befalls 
men  upon  the  forementioned  account  is,  by  their  being  misrepre- 
sented. Now  as  by  calling  evil  good,  a  man  is  misrepresented  to 
himself  in  the  way  of  flattery  ;  so  by  calling  good  evil,  he  is  mis- 
represented to  others  in  the  way  of  slander  and  detraction.  I  say 
detraction,  that  killing,  poisoned  arrow  drawn  out  of  the  devil's 
quiver,  which  is  always  flying  abroad,  and  doing  execution  in 
the  dark  ;  against  which  no  virtue  is  a  defence,  no  innocence  a 
security.  For  as  by  flattery  a  man  is  usually  brought  to  open  his 
bosom  to  his  mortal  enemy  ;  so  by  detraction,  and  a  slanderous 
misreport  of  persons,  he  is  often  brought  to  shut  the  same  even 
to  his  best  and  truest  friends.  In  both  cases  he  receives  a  fatal 
blow,  since  that  which  lays  a  man  open  to  an  enemy,  and  that 
which  strips  him  of  a  friend,  equally  attacks  him  in  all  those  inte- 
rests, that  are  capable  of  being  weakened  by  the  one,  and  sup- 
ported by  the  other. 

The  most  direct  and  efficacious  way  to  ruin  any  man  is  to  mis- 
represent him  :  and  it  often  so  falls  out,  that  it  wounds  on  both 
sides,  and  not  only  mauls  the  person  misrepresented,  but  him 

2  G 


350 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXI. 


also  to  whom  he  is  misrepresented  ;  for  if  he  be  great  and  power- 
ful (as  spies  and  pickthanks  seldom  apply  to  any  others)  it 
generally  provokes  him  through  mistake  to  persecute  and  tyran- 
nize over,  nay,  and  sometimes  even  to  dip  his  hands  in  the  blood 
of  the  innocent  and  the  just,  and  thereby  involve  himself  in  such 
a  guilt  as  shall  arm  heaven  and  earth  against  him,  the  vengeance 
of  God,  and  the  indignation  of  men  ;  who  will  both  espouse  the 
quarrel  of  a  bleeding  innocence,  and  heartily  join  forces  against  an 
insulting  baseness,  especially  when  backed  with  greatness,  and 
set  on  by  misinformation.    Histories  are.  full  of  such  examples. 

Besides  that,  it  is  rarely  found,  that  men  hold  their  greatness  for 
term  of  life :  though  their  baseness,  for  the  most  part  they  do  ; 
and  then,  according  to  the  common  vicissitude  and  wheel  of  things, 
the  proud  and  the  insolent  must  take  their  turn  too  ;  and  after  long 
trampling  upon*  others,  come  at  length,  plaudente  et  gaudente  mundo, 
to  be  trampled  upon  themselves.  For,  as  Tully  has  it  in  his  ora- 
tion for  Milo,  Non  semper  viator  a  latrone,  nonnunquam  etiam  latro 
a  viatore  occiditur. 

But  to  pass  from  particulars  to  communities  ;  nothing  can  be 
imagined  more  destructive  to  society  than  this  villanous  practice. 
For  it  robs  the  public  of  all  that  benefit  and  advantage,  that  it 
may  justly  claim  and  ought  to  receive  from  the  worth  and  virtue 
of  particular  persons,  by  rendering  their  virtue  utterly  insignificant. 
For  good  itself  can  do  no  good,  while  it  passes  for  evil  ;  and  an 
honest  man  is,  in  effect,  useless,  while  he  is  accounted  a  knave. 
Both  things  and  persons  subsist  by  their  reputation. 

An  unjust  sentence  from  a  tribunal  may  condemn  an  innocent 
person  ;  but  misrepresentation  condemns  innocence  itself.  For  it 
is  this  which  revives  and  imitates  that  inhuman  barbarity  of  the 
old  heathen  persecutors,  wrapping  up  Christians  in  the  skins  of 
wild  beasts,  that  so  they  might  be  worried  and  torn  in  pieces  by 
dogs.  Do  but  paint  an  angel  black,  and  that  is  enough  to  make 
him  pass  for  a  devil.  "  Let  us  blacken  him,  let  us  blacken  him 
what  we  can,"  said  the  miscreant  Harrison,*  of  the  blessed  king, 
upon  the  wording  and  drawing  up  his  charge  against  his  approach- 
ing trial.  And  when  any  man  is  to  be  run  down,  and  sacrificed 
to  the  lust  of  his  enemies,  as  that  royal  martyr  was,  even  his 
"  good  (according  to  the  apostle's  phrase)  shall  be  evil  spoken 
of."  He  must  first  be  undermined,  and  then  undone.  The  prac- 
tice is  usual,  and  the  method  natural.  But  to  give  you  the  whole 
malice  of  it  in  one  word  :  it  is  a  weapon  forged  in  hell,  and 
formed  by  the  prime  artificer  and  engineer  of  all  mischief,  the 
devil ;  and  none  but  that  God,  who  knows  all  things,  and  can  do 
all  things,  can  protect  the  best  of  men  against  it. 

Now  to  God  the  Father,  &c. 

*  A  preaching  colonel  of  the  parliament-army,  and  a  chief  actor  in  the  murder  oj 
king  Chrtrles  the  first;  notable  before  for  having  killed  several  after  quarter  given  them 
by  others,  and  using  these  words  in  the  doing  it,  "  Cursed  be  he  who  does  the  work  of 
the  Lord  negligently"  He  was  by  extraction  a  butcher's  son;  and  accordingly,  in  bis 
practices  all  along,  more  a  butcher  than  his  father. 


351 


SERMON  XXII. 

PREVENTION    OF   SIN    AN    INVALUABLE  MERCY. 
[Preached  at  Christ  Church,  Oxon,  November  10,  1678.] 

1  Samuel  xxv.  32,  33. 

And  David  said  to  Abigail,  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  who 
sent  thee  this  day  to  meet  me.  And  blessed  be  thy  advice,  and 
blessed  be  thou,  who  hast  kept  me  tins  day  from  coming  to  shed 
blood,  and  from  avenging  myself  with  my  own  hand. 

These  words  are  David's  retractation,  or  laying  down  of  a 
bloody  and  revengeful  resolution ;  which  for  a  while  his  heart 
had  swelled  with,  and  carried  him  on  with  the  highest  transport 
of  rage  to  prosecute.  A  resolution  taken  up  from  the  sense  of  a 
gross  indignity  and  affront  passed  upon  him,  in  recompence  of  a 
signal  favour  and  kindness  received  from  him.  For  during  his 
exile  and  flight  before  Saul,  in  which  he  was  frequently  put  to  all 
the  hardships  which  usually  befall  the  weak  flying  before  the 
strong,  there  happening  a  great  and  solemn  festivity,  such  as  the 
sheep-shearings  used  to  be  in  those  eastern  countries,  he  conde- 
scends, by  an  honourable  and  kind  message,  to  beg  of  a  rich  and 
great  man,  some  small  repast  and  supply  for  himself  and  his  poor 
harassed  companions,  at  that  notable  time  of  joy  and  feasting :  a 
time  that  might  make  any  thing  that  looked  like  want  or  hunger, 
no  less  an  absurdity  than  a  misery  to  all  that  were  round  abou£ 
him.  And,  as  if  the  greatness  of  the  asker,  and  the  smallness  of 
the  thing  asked,  had  not  been  sufficient  to  enforce  his  request,  he 
adds  a  commemoration  of  his  own  generous  and  noble  usage  of 
the  person  whom  he  thus  addressed ;  showing  how  that  he  had 
been  a  wall  and  a  bulwark  to  all  that  belonged  to  him,  a  safeguard 
to  his  estate,  and  a  keeper  of  his  flocks ;  and  that  both  from  the 
violence  of  robbers,  and  the  license  of  his  own  soldiers ;  who  could 
much  more  easily  have  carved  themselves  their  own  provisions, 
than  so  great  a  spirit  stoop  so  low  as  to  ask  them. 

But  in  answer  to  this  (as  nothing  is  so  rude  and  insolent  as  a 
wealthy  rustic)  all  this  his  kindness  is  overlooked,  his  request  re- 
jected, and  his  person  most  unworthily  railed  at.  Such  being 
the  nature  of  some  base  minds,  that  they  can  never  do  ill  turns 
but  they  must  double  them  with  ill  words  too.  And  thus  David's 
messengers  are  sent  back  to  him  like  so  many  sharks  and  runa- 
gates, only  for  endeavouring  to  compliment  an  ill  nature  out  of 
itself;  and  seeking  that  by  petition  which  they  might  have  com- 
manded by  their  sword. 


352 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXII. 


And  now,  who  would  not  but  think  that  such  ungrateful  usage, 
heightened  by  such  reproachful  language,  might  warrant  the 
justice  of  the  sharpest  revenge ;  even  of  such  a  revenge  as  now 
began  to  boil  and  burn  in  the  breast  of  this  great  warrior?^  For 
surely,  if  any  thing  may  justly  call  up  the  utmost  of  a  man's 
rage,  it  should  be  bitter  and  contumelious  words  from  an  unpro- 
voked inferior ;  and  if  any  thing  can  legalise  revenge,  it  should 
be  injuries  from  an  extremely  obliged  person.  But  for  all  this, 
revenge,  we  see,  is  so  much  the  prerogative  of  the  Almighty,  so 
absolutely  the  peculiar  of  Heaven,  that  no  consideration  what- 
soever can  empower  even  the  best  of  men  to  assume  the  execu- 
tion of  it  in  their  own  case.  And  therefore  David,  by  a  happy 
and  seasonable  pacification,  being  taken  off  from  acting  that 
bloody  tragedy,  which  he  was  just  now  entering  upon,  and  so 
turning  his  eyes  from  the  baseness  of  him  who  had  stirred  up 
his  revenge,  to  the  goodness  of  that  God  who  had  prevented  it; 
he  breaks  forth  into  -  these  triumphant  praises  and  doxologies, 
expressed  in  the  text :  "  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  who 
has  kept  me  this  day  from  shedding  blood,  and  from  avenging 
myself  with  my  own  hand." 

Which  words,  together  with  those  going  before  in  the  same  verse, 
naturally  afford  us  this  doctrinal  proposition,  which  shall  be  the 
subject  of  the  following  discourse :  namely,  That  prevention  of  sin 
is  one  of  the  greatest  mercies  that  God  can  vouchsafe  a  man  in  this 
world. 

The  prosecution  of  which  shall  lie  in  these  two  things :  first,  to 
prove  the  proposition  ;  secondly,  to  apply  it. 

I.  And  first,  for  the  proof  of  it :  that  transcendent  greatness  of 
this  sin-preventing  mercy  is  demonstrable  from  these  four  following 
considerations. 

1.  Of  the  condition  which  the  sinner  is  in,  when  this  mercy  is 
vouchsafed  him. 

2.  Of  the  principle  or  fountain  from  whence  this  prevention  of 
sin  does  proceed. 

3.  Of  the  hazard  a  man  runs  if  the  commission  of  sin  be  not 
prevented,  whether  ever  it  will  come  to  be  pardoned: 

4.  And  lastly,  Of  the  advantages  accruing  to  the  soul  from  the 
prevention  of  sin,  above  what  can  be  had  from  the  bare  pardon  of 
it,  in  case  it  comes  to  be  pardoned. 

Of  these  in  their  order ;  and  first,  we  are  to  take  an  estimate 
of  the  greatness  of  this  mercy,  from  the  condition  it  finds  the 
sinner  in,  when  God  is  pleased  to  vouchsafe  it  to  him.  It  finds 
him  in  the  direct  way  to  death  and  destruction ;  and,  which  is 
worse,  wholly  unable  to  help  himself.  For  he  is  actually  under  the 
power  of  a  temptation  and  the  sway  of  an  impetuous  lust ; 
both  hurrying  him  on  to  satisfy  the  cravings  of  it  by  some  wicked 
action.    He  is  possessed  and  acted  by  a  passion,  which,  for  the 


PREVENTION   OF  SIN  AN  INVALUABLE  MERCY. 


353 


present,  absolutely  overrules  him  ;  and  so  can  no  more  recover 
himself,  than  a  bowl  rolling  down  a  hill  stop  itself  in  the  midst 
of  its  career.  It  is  a  maxim  in  the  philosophy  of  some,  that 
whatsoever  is  once  in  actual  motion,  will  move  for  ever,  if  it  be 
not  hindered.  So  a  man  being  under  the  drift  of  any  passion, 
will  still  follow  the  impulse  of  it  till  something  interpose,  and  by 
a  stronger  impulse  turn  him  another  way :  but  in  this  case  we 
can  find  no  principle  within  him  strong  enough  to  counteract  that 
principle,  and  to  relieve  him.  For  if  it  be  any,  it  must  be  either, 
first,  the  judgment  of  his  reason  ;  or  secondly,  the  free  choice  of 
his  will. 

But  from  the  first  of  these  there  can  be  no  help  for  him  in  his 
present  condition.  For  while  a  man  is  engaged  in  any  sinful 
purpose,  through  the  prevalence  of  any  passion,  during  the  con- 
tinuance of  that  passion  he  fully  approves  of  whatsoever  he  is 
carried  on  to  do  in  the  strength  of  it ;  and  judges  it,  under  his 
present  circumstances,  the  best  and  most  rational  course  that  he 
can  take.  Thus  we  see,  when  Jonas  was  under  the  passion  of 
anger,  and  God  asked  him,  "  Whether  he  did  well  to  be  angry?" 
He  answered,  "  I  do  well  to  be  angry  even  unto  death,"  Jonas 
iv.  9.  And  when  Saul  was  under  his  persecuting  fit,  what  he 
did  appeared  to  him  good  and  necessary,  Acts  xxvi.  9,  "I  verily 
thought  with  myself  that  I  ought  to  do  many  things  contrary  to 
the  name  of  Jesus."  But  to  go  no  further  than  the  text ;  do  we 
not  think,  that  while  David's  heart  was  full  of  his  revengeful 
design,  it  had  blinded  and  perverted  his  reason  so  far,  that  it 
struck  in  wholly  with  his  passion,  and  told  him  that  the  bloody 
purpose  he  was  going  to  execute  was  just,  magnanimous,  and  most 
becoming  such  a  person,  and  so  dealt  with,  as  he  was  ?  This 
being  so,  how  is  it  possible  for  a  man  under  a  passion  to  receive 
any  succour  from  his  judgment  or  reason,  which  is  made  a  party 
in  the  whole  action,  and  influenced  to  a  present  approbation  of  all 
the  ill  things  which  his  passion  can  suggest  ?  This  is  most  certain  ; 
and  every  man  may  find  it  by  experience,  if  he  will  but  impar- 
tially reflect  upon  the  method  of  his  own  actings,  and  the  motions 
of  his  own  mind — that  while  he  is  under  any  passion,  he  thinks 
and  judges  quite  otherwise  of  the  proper  objects  of  that  passion, 
from  what  he  does  when  he  is  out  of  it.  Take  a  man  under  the 
transports  of  a  vehement  rage  or  revenge,  and  he  passes  a  very  dif- 
ferent judgment  upon  murder  and  bloodshed,  from  what  he  does 
when  his  revenge  is  over,  and  the  flame  of  his  fury  spent.  Take  a 
man  possessed  with  a  strong  and  immoderate  desire  of  any  thing, 
and  you  shall  find  that  the  worth  and  excellency  of  that  thing 
appears  much  greater  and  more  dazzling  to  the  eye  of  his  mind, 
than  it  does  when  that  desire  either  by  satisfaction  or  otherwise 
is  quite  extinguished.  So  that  while  passion  is  upon  the  wing, 
and  the  man  fully  engaged  in  the  prosecution  of  some  unlawful 
object,  no  remedy  or  control  is  to  be  expected  from  his  reason, 

Vol.  I.— 45  2  g  2 


354 


DR.    SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXII. 


which  is  wholly  gained  over  to  judge  in  favour  of  it.  The  fumes 
of  his  passion  do  as  really  intoxicate  and  confound  his  judging 
and  discerning  faculty,  as  the  fumes  of  drink  discompose  and 
stupify  the  brain  of  a  man  overcharged  with  it.  When  his  drink 
indeed  is  over,  he  sees  the  folly  and  the  absurdity,  the  madness 
and  the  vileness  of  those  things  which  before  he  acted  with  full 
complacency  and  approbation.  Passion  is  the  drunkenness  of 
the  mind  ;  and  therefore,  in  its  present  workings  not  controllable 
by  reason ;  forasmuch  as  the  proper  effect  of  it  is,  for  the  time, 
to  supersede  the  workings  of  reason.  This  principle  there- 
fore being  able  to  do  nothing  to  the  stopping  of  a  man  in  the 
eager  pursuit  of  his  sin,  there  remains  no  other,  that  can  be  supposed 
able  to  do  any  thing  upon  the  soul,  but  that  second  mentioned, 
to  wit,  the  choice  of  his  will.  But  this  also  is  as  much  disabled 
from  recovering  a  man  fully  intent  upon  the  prosecution  of  any 
of  his  lusts,  as  the  former.  For  all  the  time  that  a  man  is  so, 
he  absolutely  wills,  and  is  fully  pleased  with  what  he  is  design- 
ing or  going  about.  And  whatsoever  perfectly  pleases  the  will, 
overpowers  it ;  for  it  fixes  and  determines  the  inclination  of  it 
to  that  one  thing  which  is  before  it ;  and  so  fills  up  all  its  pos- 
sibilities of  indifference,  that  there  is  actually  no  room  for 
choice.  He  who  is  under  the  power  of  melancholy,  is  pleased 
with  his  being  so  ;  he  who  is  angry,  delights  in  nothing  so  much 
as  in  the  venting  of  his  rage  ;  and  he  who  is  lustful,  places  his 
greatest  satisfaction  in  a  slavish  following  the  dictates  of  his 
lust.  And  so  long  as  the  will  and  the  affections  are  pleased,  and 
exceedingly  gratified  in  any  course  of  acting,  it  is  impossible  for 
a  man,  so  far  as  he  is  at  his  own  disposal,  not  to  continue  in  it ; 
or,  by  any  principle  within  him,  to  be  diverted  or  taken  off 
from  it. 

From  all  which  we  see,  that  when  a  man  has  taken  up  a  full 
purpose  of  sinning,  he  is  hurried  on  to  it  in  the  strength  of 
all  those  principles  which  nature  has  given  him  to  act  by  :  for 
sin  having  depraved  his  judgment,  and  got  possession  of  his  will, 
there  is  no  other  principle  left  him  naturally,  by  which  he  can 
make  head  against  it.  Nor  is  this  all ;  but  to  these  internal  dis- 
positions to  sin,  add  the  external  opportunities  and  occasions 
concurring  with  them,  and  removing  all  lets  and  rubs  out  of  the 
way,  and,  as  it  were,  making  the  path  of  destruction  plain 
before  the  sinner's  face  ;  so  that  he  may  run  his  course  freely 
and  without  interruption.  Nay,  when  opportunities  shall  lie  so 
fair,  as  not  only  to  permit,  but  even  to  invite  and  further  a 
progress  in  sin  ;  so  that  the  sinner  shall  set  forth,  like  a  ship 
launched  into  the  wide  sea  ;  not  only  well  built  and  rigged,  but 
also  carried  on  with  full  wind  and  tide  to  the  port  or  place  it  is 
bound  for ;  surely  in  this  case,  nothing  under  heaven  can  be 
imagined  able  to  stop  or  countermand  a  sinner,  amidst  all  these 
circumstances  promoting  and  pushing  on  his  sinful  design.  For 


PREVENTION  OF  SIN  AN  INVALUABLE  MERCY. 


355 


all  that  can  give  force  and  fury  to  motion,  both  from  within  and 
from  without,  jointly  meet  to  bear  him  forward  in  his  present  at- 
tempt. He  presses  on  like  a  horse  rushing  into  the  battle,  and  all 
that  should  withstand  him  giving  way  before  him. 

Now  under  this  deplorable  necessity  of  ruin  and  destruction 
does  God's  preventing  grace  find  every  sinner,  when  it  "  snatches 
him  like  a  brand  out  of  the  fire,"  and  steps  in  between  the  pur- 
pose and  the  commission  of  his  sin.  It  finds  him  going  on 
resolutely  in  the  high  and  broad  way  to  perdition ;  which  yet 
his  perverted  reason  tells  him  is  right,  and  his  will,  pleasant :  and 
therefore  he  has  no  power  of  himself  to  leave  or  turn  out  of  it ; 
but  he  is  ruined  jocundly  and  pleasantly,  and  damned  according 
to  his  heart's  desire.  And  can  there  be  a  more  wretched  and 
woeful  spectacle  of  misery,  than  a  man  in  such  a  condition  ?  a 
man  pleasing  and  destroying  himself  together  ?  a  man,  as  it  were, 
doing  violence  to  damnation,  and  taking  hell  by  force  ?  So  that 
when  the  preventing  goodness  of  God  reaches  out  its  arm,  and  pulls 
him  out  of  this  fatal  path,  it  does  by  main  force  even  wTrest  him 
from  himself,  and  save  him,  as  it  were,  against  his  will. 

But  neither  is  this  his  total  inability  to  recover  or  relieve  himself 
the  worst  of  his  condition ;  but,  which  is  yet  much  worse, 
it  puts  him  into  a  state  of  actual  hostility  against,  and  defiance 
of,  that  almighty  God,  from  whom  alone,  in  this  helpless  and  for- 
lorn condition,  he  is  capable  of  receiving  help.  For  surely, 
while  a  man  is  going  on  in  a  full  purpose  of  sin,  he  is  trampling 
upon  all  law,  spitting  in  the  face  of  heaven,  and  provoking  his 
Maker  in  the  highest  manner ;  so  that  none  is  or  can  be  so  much 
concerned  as  God  himself,  to  destroy  and  cut  off  such  a  one,  and 
to  vindicate  the  honour  of  his  great  name  by  striking  him  dead  in 
his  rebellion.    And  this  brings  us  to  the 

2.  Thing  proposed ;  which  was  to  show,  What  is  the  fountain 
or  impulsive  cause  of  this  prevention  of  sin?  It  is  perfectly  free 
grace.  A  man  at  best,  upon  all  principles  of  divinity  and  sound 
philosophy,  is  incapable  of  meriting  any  thing  from  God.  But 
surely,  while  he  is  under  the  dominion  of  sin,  and  engaged  in  full 
design  and  purpose  to  commit  it,  it  is  not  imaginable  what  can 
be  found  in  him  to  oblige  the  divine  grace  in  his  behalf.  For  he 
is  in  high  and  actual  rebellion  against  the  only  giver  of  such 
grace.  And  therefore  it  must  needs  flow  from  a  redundant, 
unaccountable  fulness  of  compassion ;  showing  mercy,  because  it 
will  show  mercy  ;  from  a  compassion  which  is  and  must  be  its 
own  reason,  and  can  have  no  argument  for  its  exercise  but  itself. 
No  man  in  the  strength  of  the  first  grace  can  merit  the  second 
(as  some  fondly  speak,  for  reason  they  do  not),  unless  a  beggar, 
by  receiving  one  alms,  can  be  said  to  merit  another.  It  is  not 
from  what  a  man  is,  or  what  he  has  done  ;  from  any  virtue  or 
excellency,  any  preceding  worth  or  desert  in  him,  that  God  is 
induced  thus  to  interpose  between  him  and  ruin,  and  so  stop  him 


356 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXII. 


in  his  full  career  to  damnation.  No,  says  God,  in  Ezek.  xvi.  6, 
"  When  I  passed  by,  and  saw  thee  polluted  in  thine  own  blood,  I 
said  unto  thee,  Live ;  yea,  I  said  unto  thee,  when  thou  wTas  in  thy 
blood,  Live."  The  Spirit  of  God  speaks  this  great  truth  to 
the  hearts  of  men  with,  emphasis  and  repetition,  knowing  what 
an  aptness  there  is  in  them  to  oppose  it.  God  sees  a  man  wallow- 
ing in  his  native  filth  and  impurity,  delivered  over  as  an  absolute 
captive  to  sin,  polluted  with  its  guilt,  and  enslaved  by  its  power ; 
and  in  this  most  loathsome  condition  fixes  upon  him  as  an  object 
of  his  distinguishing  mercy.  And  to  show  yet  further,  that  the 
actings  of  this  mercy,  in  the  work  of  prevention,  are  entirely 
free,  do  we  not  sometimes  see,  in  persons  of  equal  guilt  and 
demerit,  and  of  equal  progress  and  advance  in  the  ways  of  sin, 
some  of  them  maturely  diverted  and  taken  off,  and  others  per- 
mitted to  go  on  without  check  or  control,  till  they  finish  a  sinful 
course  in  final  perdition  ?  So  true  is  it  that  if  things  were  cast 
upon  this  issue,  that  God  should  never  prevent  sin  till  something 
in  man  deserved  it,  the  best  of  men  would  fall  into  sin,  continue 
in  sin,  and  sin  on  for  ever. 

And  thus  much  for  the  second  thing  proposed  ;  which  was  to 
show,  What  wTas  the  principle,  or  fountain,  from  whence  this  pre- 
vention of  sin  does  proceed.    Come  we  now  to  the 

3.  Demonstration  or  proof  of  the  greatness  of  this  preventing 
mercy,  taken  from  the  hazard  a  man  runs,  if  the  commission  of 
sin  be  not  prevented,  whether  ever  it  will  come  to  be  pardoned. 

In  order  to  the  clearing  of  which,  I  shall  lay  down  these  two 
considerations. 

1.  That  if  sin  be  not  thus  prevented,  it  will  certainly  be  com^ 
mitted ;  and  the  reason  is,  because  on  the  sinner's  part  there  will 
be  always  a  strong  inclination  to  sin  ;  so  that  if  other  things  concur, 
and  Providence  cuts  not  off  the  opportunity,  the  act  of  sin  must 
needs  follow.  For  an  active  principle,  seconded  with  the  opportu- 
nities of  action,  will  infallibly  expert  itself. 

2.  The  other  consideration  is,  that  in  every  sin  deliberately 
committed,  there  are,  generally  speaking,  many  more  degrees  of 
probability,  that  that  sin  will  never  come  to  be  pardoned,  than  that 
it  will. 

And  this  shall  be  made  to  appear  upon  these  three  following 
accounts. 

1.  Because  every  commission  of  sin  introduces  into  the  soul  a 
certain  degree  of  hardness  and  an  aptness  to  continue  in  that  sin. 
It  is  a  known  maxim,  that  it  is  much  more  difficult  to  throw  out, 
than  not  to  let  in.  Every  degree  of  entrance  is  a  degree  of 
possession.  Sin  taken  into  the  soul  is  like  a  liquor  poured  into  a 
vessel ;  so  much  of  it  as  it  fills,  it  also  seasons.  The  touch  and 
tincture  go  together.  So  that  although  the  body  of  the  liquor 
should  be  poured  out  again,  yet  still  it  leaves  that  tang  behind  it, 
which  makes  the  vessel  fitter  for  that  than  for  any  other.  In 


PREVENTION   OF  SIN   AN   INVALUABLE  MERCY. 


357 


like  manner,  every  act  of  sin  strangely  transforms  and  works  over 
the  soul  to  its  own  likeness :  sin  in  this  being  to  the  soul  like  fire 
to  combustible  matter ;  it  assimilates  before  it  destroys  it. 

2.  A  second  reason  is,  because  every  commission  of  sin  im- 
prints upon  the  soul  a  further  disposition  and  proneness  to  sin :  as 
the  second,  third,  and  fourth  degrees  of  heat  are  more  easily  in- 
troduced than  the  first.  Every  one  is  both  a  preparative  and  a 
step  to  the  next.  Drinking  both  quenches  the  present  thirst, 
and  provokes  it  for  the  future.  When  the  soul  is  beaten  from 
its  first  station  and  the  mounds  and  outworks  of  virtue  are  once 
broken  down,  it  becomes  quite  another  thing  from  what  it  was 
before.  In  one  single  eating  of  the  forbidden  fruit,  when  the 
act  is  over,  yet  the  relish  remains  ;  and  the  remembrance  of  the 
first  repast  is  an  easy  allurement  to  the  second.  One  visit  is 
enough  to  begin  an  acquaintance  ;  and  this  point  is  gained  by  it, 
that  when  the  visitant  comes  again,  he  is  no  more  a  stranger. 

3.  The  third  and  grand  reason  is,  because  the  only  thing  that 
can  entitle  the  sinner  to  pardon,  which  is  repentance,  is  not  in 
the  sinner's  power.  And  he  who  goes  about  the  work  will  find 
it  so.  It  is  the  gift  of  God  ;  and  though  God  has  certainly  pro- 
mised forgiveness  of  sin  to  every  one  who  repents,  yet  he  has  not 
promised  to  any  one  to  give  him  grace  to  repent.  This  is  the 
sinner's  hard  lot ;  that  the  same  thing  which  makes  him  need 
repentance,  makes  him  also  in  danger  of  not  obtaining  it.  For 
it  provokes  and  offends  that  Holy  Spirit,  which  alone  can  bestow 
this  grace.  As  the  same  treason  which  puts  a  traitor  in  need  of 
his  prince's  mercy,  is  a  great  and  a  just  provocation  to  his  prince 
to  deny  it  him. 

Now  let  these  three  things  be  put  together:  first,  that  every 
commission  of  sin,  in  some  degree,  hardens  the  soul  in  that  sin. 
Secondly,  that  every  commission  of  sin  disposes  the  soul  to  pro- 
ceed further  in  sin.  And,  thirdly,  that  to  repent  and  turn  from  sin, 
without  which  all  pardon  is  impossible,  is  not  in  the  sinner's 
power ;  and  then,  I  suppose,  there  cannot  but  appear  a  greater 
likelihood,  that  a  sin  once  committed  will  in  the  issue  not  be 
pardoned,  than  that  it  will.  To  all  which  add  the  confirmation  of 
general  experience  and  the  real  event  of  things,  that  where  one  I 
man  ever  comes  to  repent,  a  hundred,  I  might  say,  a  thousand  at] 
least,  end  their  days  in  final  impenitence. 

All  which  considered,  surely  there  cannot  need  a  more  preg- 
nant argument  of  the  greatness  of  this  preventing  mercy ;  if  it  did 
no  more  for  a  man  than  this,  that  his  grand,  immortal  concern  more 
valuable  to  him  than  ten  thousand  worlds,  is  not  thrown  upon  a 
critical  point ;  that  he  is  not  brought  to  his  last  stake  ;  that  he  is 
rescued  from  the  first  descents  into  hell,  and  the  high  probabilities 
of  damnation. 

For  whatsoever  the  issue  proves,  it  is  certainly  a  miserable 
thing  to  be  forced  to  cast  lots  for  one's  life ;  yet  in  every  sin  a 


358 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXII. 


man  does  the  same  for  eternity.  And  therefore  let  the  boldest  sin- 
ner take  this  one  consideration  along  with  him,  when  he  is  going 
to  sin,  that  whether  the  sin  he  is  about  to  act  ever  comes  to  be 
pardoned  or  no  ;  yet  as  soon  as  it  is  acted,  it  quite  turns  the 
balance,  puts  his  salvation  upon  the  venture,  leaves  him  but  one 
cast  for  all ;  and  which  is  yet  much  more  dreadful,  makes  it  ten 
to  one  odds  against  him. 

But  let  us  now  alter  the  state  of  the  matter  so  as  to  leave  no 
doubt  in  the  case :  but  suppose  that  the  sin,  which  upon  non- 
prevention  comes  to  be  committed,  comes  also  to  be  repented  of, 
and  consequently  to  be  pardoned.    Yet,  in  the 

Fourth  and  last  place,  the  greatness  of  this  preventing  mercy  is 
eminently  proved  from  those  advantages  accruing  to  the  soul  from 
the  prevention  of  sin,  above  what  can  be  had  from  the  bare 
pardon  of  it.    And  that  in  these  two  great  respects. 

1.  Of  the  clearness  of  a  man's  condition. 

2.  Of  the  satisfaction  of  his  mind.  And, 

1.  For  the  clearness  of  his  condition.  If  innocence  be  prefer- 
able to  repentance,  and  to  be  clean  be  more  desirable  than  to  be 
cleansed ;  then  surely  prevention  of  sin  ought  to  have  the  pre- 
cedence of  its  pardon.  For,  so  much  of  prevention,  so  much  of 
innocence.  There  are  indeed  various  degrees  of  it ;  and  God  in 
his  infinite  wisdom  does  not  deal  forth  the  same  measure  of  his 
preventing  grace  to  all.  Sometimes  he  may  suffer  the  soul  but  just 
to  begin  the  sinful  production,  in  reflecting  upon  a  sin  suggested 
by  the  imagination,  with  some  complacency  and  delight ;  which, 
in  the  apostle's  phrase,  is  to  "conceive  sin:"  and  then,  in  these 
early  imperfect  beginnings,  God  perhaps  may  presently  dash  and 
extinguish  it.  Or  possibly  he  may  permit  the  sinful  conception 
to  receive  life  and  form,  by  passing  into  a  purpose  of  committing 
it ;  and  then  he  may  make  it  prove  abortive,  by  stifling  it  before 
ever  it  comes  to  the  birth.  Or  perhaps  God  may  think  fit  to  let  it 
come  even  to  the  birth,  by  some  strong  endeavours  to  commit  it ; 
and  yet  then  deny  it  strength  to  bring  forth  ;  so  that  it  never  comes 
into  actual  commission.  Or,  lastly,  God  may  suffer  it  to  be  born 
and  see  the  world,  by  permitting  the  endeavour  of  sin  to  pass  into 
the  commission  of  it :  and  this  is  the  last  fatal  step  but  one  ;  which 
is  by  frequent  repetition  of  the  sinful  act,  to  continue  and  per- 
sist in  it,  till  at  length  it  settles  into  a  fixed,  confirmed  habit  of 
sin,  which  being  properly  that  which  the  apostle  calls  the  "  finish- 
ing of  sin,"  ends  certainly  in  death ;  death,  not  only  as  to  merit, 
but  also  as  to  actual  infliction. 

Now  peradventure  in  this  whole  progress,  preventing  grace 
may  sometimes  come  in  to  the  poor  sinner's  help  but  at  the  last 
hour  of  the  day ;  and  having  suffered  him  to  run  all  the  former 
risk  and  maze  of  sin,  and  to  descend  so  many  steps  downwards 
to  the  black  regions  of  death  ;  as  first,  from  the  bare  thought  and 
imagination   of  sin,  to  look  upon  it  with  some  beginnings  of 


PREVENTION  OF  SIN  AN  INVALUABLE  MERCY.  359 


appetite  and  delight ;  from  thence  to  purpose  and  intend  it ;  and 
from  intending  to  endeavour  it ;  and  from  endeavouring  actually 
to  commit  it :  and  having  committed  it,  perhaps  for  some  time  to 
continue  in  it.  And  then,  I  say,  after  all  this,  God  may  turn  the 
fatal  stream,  and  by  a  mighty  grace  interrupt  its  course,  and  keep 
it  from  passing  into  a  settled  habit,  and  so  hinder  the  absolute  com- 
pletion of  sin  in  final  obduracy. 

Certain  it  is,  that  wheresoever  it  pleases  God  to  stop  the  sinner 
on  this  side  hell,  how  far  soever  he  has  been  advanced  in  his  way 
towards  it,  it  is  a  vast,  ineffable  mercy  ;  a  mercy  as  great  as  life 
from  the  dead,  and  salvation  to  a  man  tottering  with  horror  upon 
the  very  edge  and  brink  of  destruction.  But  if  more  than  all 
this,  God  shall  be  pleased  by  an  early  grace  to  prevent  sin  so 
soon,  as  to  keep  the  soul  in  the  virginity  of  its  first  innocence,  not 
tainted  with  the  desires,  and  much  less  defloured  with  the  formed 
purpose  of  any  thing  vile  and  sinful ;  what  an  infinite  goodness  is 
this !  It  is  not  a  converting,  but  a  crowning  grace ;  such  a 
one  as  irradiates,  and  puts  a  circle  of  glory  about  the  head  of  1 
him  upon  whom  it  descends ;  it  is  the  Holy  Ghost  coming  down 
upon  him  "  in  the  form  of  a  dove  ;"  and  setting  him  triumphant 
above  the  necessity  of  tears  and  sorrow,  mourning  and  repentance, 
the  sad  after-games  of  a  lost  innocence.  And  this  brings  in.  the 
consideration  of  that  other  great  advantage  accruing  to  the  soul 
from  the  prevention  of  sin,  above  what  can  be  had  from  the  bare 
pardon  of  it :  namely, 

2.  The  satisfaction  of  a  marts  mind.  There  is  that  true  joy, 
that  solid  and  substantial  comfort  conveyed  to  the  heart  by  pre- 
venting grace,  which  pardoning  grace,  at  the  best,  very  seldom, 
and,  for  the  most  part,  never  gives.  For  since  all  joy  passes  into 
the  heart  through  the  understanding,  the  object  of  it  must  be 
known  by  one  before  it  can  affect  the  other.  Now  when  grace 
keeps  a  man  so  within  his  bounds,  that  sin  is  prevented,  he  cer- 
tainly knows  it  to  be  so ;  and  so  rejoices  upon  the  firm,  infallible 
ground  of  sense  and  assurance.  But  on  the  other  side,  though 
grace  may  have  reversed  the  condemning  sentence,  and  sealed  the 
sinner's  pardon  before  God,  yet  it  may  have  left  no  transcript  of 
that  pardon  in  the  sinner's  breast.  The  hand-writing  against 
him  may  be  cancelled  in  the  court  of  heaven,  and  yet  the  indict- 
ment run  on  in  the  court  of  conscience.  So  that  a  man  may  be 
safe  as  to  his  condition,  but  in  the  mean  time  dark  and  doubtful 
as  to  his  apprehensions;  secure  in  his  pardon,  but  miserable  in 
the  ignorance  of  it ;  and  so  passing  all  his  days  in  the  disconsolate, 
uneasy  vicissitudes  of  hopes  and  fears,  at  length  go  out  of  the 
world,  not  knowing  whither  he  goes.  And  what  is  this  but  a 
black  cloud  drawn  over  all  a  man's  comforts?  A  cloud,  which 
though  it  cannot  hinder  the  supporting  influence  of  heaven,  yet 
will  be  sure  to  intercept  the  refreshing  light  of  it.  The  pardoned 
person  must  not  think  to  stand  upon  the  same  vantage-ground 


360 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXII. 


with  the  innocent.  It  is  enough  that  they  are  both  equally  safe  ; 
but  it  cannot  be  thought,  that  without  a  rare  privilege,  both  can 
be  equally  cheerful.  And  thus  much  for  the  advantageous 
effects  of  preventing,  above  those  of  pardoning  grace  :  which 
was  the  fourth  and  last  argument  brought  for  the  proof  of  the 
proposition.  Pass  we  now  to  the  next  general  thing  proposed  for 
the  prosecution  of  it ;  namely, 

II.  Its  application.  Which,  from  the  foregoing  discourse,  may 
afford  us  several  useful  deductions,  but  chiefly  by  way  of  informa- 
tion, in  these  three  following  particulars.  As, 

First,  This  may  inform  and  convince  us  how  vastly  greater  a 
pleasure  is  consequent  upon  the  forbearance  of  sin,  than  can 
possibly  accompany  the  commission  of  it ;  and  how  much  higher 
a  satisfaction  is  to  be  found  from  a  conquered,  than  from  a  con- 
quering passion.  For  the  proof  of  which,  we  need  look  no 
further  than  the  great  example  here  before  us.  Revenge  is  cer- 
tainly the  most  luscious  morsel  that  the  devil  can  put  into  the 
sinner's  mouth.  But  do  we  think  that  David  could  have  found 
half  that  pleasure  in  the  execution  of  his  revenge,  that  he 
expresses  here  upon  the  disappointment  of  it?  Possibly  it 
might  have  pleased  him  in  the  present  heat  and  hurry  of  his  rage, 
but  must  have  displeased  him  infinitely  more  in  the  cool,  sedate 
reflections  of  his  mind.  For  sin  can  please  no  longer  than  for 
that  pitiful  space  of  time  while  it  is  committing  ;  and  surely  the 
present  pleasure  of  a  sinful  act  is  a  poor  countervail  for  the 
bitterness  of  the  review,  which  begins  where  the  action  ends,  and 
lasts  for  ever.  There  is  no  ill  thing  which  a  man  does  in  his 
passion,  but  his  memory  will  be  revenged  on  him  for  it  af- 
terwards. 

All  pleasure  springing  from  a  gratified  passion,  as  most  of  the 
pleasure  of  sin  does,  must  needs  determine  with  that  passion.  It 
is  short,  violent,  and  fallacious ;  and  as  soon  as  the  imagination 
is  disabused,  will  certainly  be  at  an  end.  And  therefore  Dei 
Cartes  prescribes  excellently  well  for  the  regulation  of  the  pas- 
sions, viz.  That  a  man  should  fix  and  forearm  his  mind  with  this 
settled  persuasion,  that  during  that  commotion  of  his  blood  and 
spirits,  in  which  passion  properly  consists,  whatsoever  is  offered 
to  his  imagination  in  favour  of  it,  tends  only  to  deceive  his  reason. 
It  is  indeed  a  real  trepan  upon  it ;  feeding  it  with  colours  and 
appearances,  instead  of  arguments;  and  driving  the  very  same 
bargain  which  Jacob  did  with  Esau,  a  mess  of  pottage  for  a 
birthright,  a  present  repast  for  a  perpetuity. 

Secondly,  We  have  here  a  sure  unfailing  criterion,  by  which 
every  man  may  discover  and  find  out  the  gracious  or  ungracious 
disposition  of  his  own  heart.  The  temper  of  every  man  is  to  be 
judged  of  from  the  thing  he  most  esteems ;  and  the  object  of  his 
esteem  may  be  measured  by  the  prime  object  of  his  thanks. 


PREVENTION  OE  SIN   AN  INVALUABLE  MERCY. 


361 


What  is  it  that  opens  thy  mouth  in  praises,  that  fills  thy  heart  and 
lifts  up  thy  hands  in  grateful  acknowledgments  to  thy  great 
Creator  and  Preserver  ?  Is  it  that  thy  bags  and  thy  barns  are 
full,  that  thou  hast  escaped  this  sickness  or  that  danger?  Alas, 
God  may  have  done  all  this  for  thee  in  anger !  All  this  fair  sun- 
shine mav  have  been  only  to  harden  thee  in  thy  sins.  He  may 
have  given  thee  riches  and  honour,  health  and  power  with  a  curse  ; 
and  if  so,  it  will  be  found  but  a  poor  comfort,  to  have  had  never 
so  great  a  share  of  God's  bounty  without  his  blessing. 

But  has  he  at  any  time  kept  thee  from  thy  sin  ?  stopped  thee  in 
the  prosecution  of  thy  lust  ?  defeated  the  malicious  arts  and 
stratagems  of  thy  mortal  enemy  the  tempter?  And  does  not  the 
sense  of  this  move  and  affect  thy  heart  more  than  all  the  former 
instances  of  temporal  prosperity,  which  are  but,  as  it  were,  the 
promiscuous  scatterings  of  his  common  providence,  while  these 
are  the  distinguishing  kindnesses  of  his  special  grace  ? 

A  truly  pious  mind  has  certainly  another  kind  of  relish  and 
taste  of  these  things ;  and  if  it  receives  a  temporal  blessing  with 
gratitude,  it  receives  a  spiritual  one  with  ecstasy  and  transport. 
David,  an  heroic  instance  of  such  a  temper,  overlooks  the  rich 
and  seasonable  present  of  Abigail,  though  pressed  with  hunger 
and  travel ;  but  her  advice,  which  disarmed  his  rage  and  calmed 
his  revenge,  draws  forth  those  high  and  affectionate  gratulations 
from  him:  "Blessed  be  thy  advice,  and  blessed  be  thou,  who 
hast  kept  me  this  day  from  shedding  blood,  and  avenging  myself 
with  my  own  hand."  These  were  his  joyful  and  glorious 
trophies  ;  not  that  he  triumphed  over  his  enemy,  but  that  he  in- 
sulted over  his  revenge ;  that  he  escaped  from  himself,  and  was 
delivered  from  his  own  fury.  And  whosoever  has  anything  of 
David's  piety,  will  be  perpetually  plving  the  throne  of  grace  with 
such  like  acknowledgments  ;  as,  1  Blessed  be  that  providence, 
which  delivered  me  from  such  a  lewd  company,  and  such  a 
vicious  acquaintance,  which  was  the  bane  of  such  and  such  a 
person.  And,  blessed  be  that  God,  who  cast  rubs,  and  stops, 
and  hinderances  in  my  wav,  when  I  was  attempting  the  commis- 
sion of  such  or  such  a  sin  :  who  took  me  out  of  such  a  course 
of  life,  such  a  place,  or  such  an  employment,  which  was  a  con- 
tinual snare  and  temptation  to  me.  And,  blessed  be  such  a 
preacher,  and  such  a  friend,  whom  God  made  use  of  to  speak  a 
word  in  season  to  my  wicked  heart,  and  so  turned  me  out  of  the 
paths  of  death  and  destruction,  and  saved  me  in  spite  of  the  world, 
the  devil,  and  myself.' 

These  are  such  things  as  a  man  shall  remember  with  joy  upon 
his  death-bed  ;  such  as  shall  cheer  and  warm  his  heart  even  in 
that  last  and  bitter  agony,  when  many  from  the  very  bottom  of 
their  souls  shall  wi<;h  that  they  had  never  been  rich,  or  great,  or 
powerful  ;  and  reflect  with  anguish  and  remorse  upon  those 
splendid  occasions  of  sin,  which  served  them  for  little  but  to 
Vol.  t— 46  2  H 


362 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXII. 


heighten  their  guilt,  and  at  best  to  inflame  their  accounts,  at  that 
great  tribunal  which  they  are  going  to  appear  before. 

3.  In  the  third  and  last  place.  We  learn  from  hence  the  great 
reasonableness  of,  not  only  a  contented,  but  also  a  thankful 
acquiescence  in  any  condition,  and  under  the  crossest  and  severest 
passages  of  Providence  which  can  possibly  befall  us :  since  there 
is  none  of  all  these  but  may  be  the  instrument  of  preventing  grace 
in  the  hands  of  a  merciful  God,  to  keep  us  from  those  courses 
which  would  otherwise  assuredly  end  in  our  confusion.  This  is 
most  certain,  that  there  is  no  enjoyment  which  the  nature  of  man 
is  either  desirous  or  capable  of,  but  may  be  to  him  a  direct  in- 
ducement to  sin,  and  consequently  is  big  with  mischief,  and 
carries  death  in  the  bowels  of  it.  But  to  make  the  assertion  more 
particular,  and  thereby  more  convincing,  let  us  take  an  account  of 
it  with  reference  to  the  three  greatest  and  deservedly  most  valued 
enjoyments  of  this  life. 

1st,  Health  ;  2dly,  Reputation ;  and  3dly,  Wealth. 

First.  And  first  for  health.  Has  God  made  a  breach  upon 
that  ?  Perhaps  he  is  building  up  thy  soul  upon  the  ruins  of  thy 
body.  Has  he  bereaved  thee  of  the  use  and  vigour  of  thy  limbs  ? 
Possibly  he  saw,  that  otherwise  they  would  have  been  the  instru- 
ments of  thy  lusts,  and  the  active  ministers  of  thy  debaucheries. 
Perhaps  thy  languishing  upon  thy  bed  has  kept  thee  from  rotting 
in  a  gaol,  or  in  a  worse  place.  God  saw  it  necessary  by  such 
mortifications  to  quench  the  boilings  of  a  furious,  overflowing 
appetite,  and  the  boundless  rage  of  an  insatiable  intemperance  ; 
to  make  the  weakness  of  the  flesh  the  physic  and  restorative  of 
the  spirit ;  and,  in  a  word,  rather  to  save  thee  diseased,  sickly, 
and  deformed,  than  to  let  strength,  health,  and  beauty,  drive  thee 
headlong,  as  they  have  done  many  thousands,  into  eternal  de' 
struction. 

Secondly,  Has  God  in  his  providence  thought  fit  to  drop  a 
blot  upon  thy  name,  and  to  blast  thy  reputation  ?  He  saw  per- 
haps that  the  breath  of  popular  air  was  grown  infectious,  and 
would  have  derived  a  contagion  upon  thy  better  part.  Pride 
and  vain-glory  had  mounted  thee  too  high,  and  therefore  it  was 
necessary  for  mercy  to  take  thee  down,  to  prevent  a  greater  fall. 
"  A  good  name  is,  indeed,  better  than  life  but  a  sound  mind  is 
better  than  both.  Praise  and  applause  had  swelled  thee  to  a 
proportion  ready  to  burst ;  it  had  vitiated  all  thy  spiritual  appe- 
tites, and  brought  thee  to  feed  upon  the  air,  and  to  surfeit  upon 
the  wind,  and,  in  a  word,  to  starve  thy  soul  only  to  pamper  thy 
imagination. 

And  now  if  God  makes  use  of  some  poignant  disgrace  to 
prick  this  enormous  bladder,  and  to  let  out  the  poisonous  vapour, 
is  not  the  mercy  greater  than  the  severity  of  the  cure  ?  "  Cover 
them  with  shame,"  says  the  psalmist,  "  that  they  may  seek  thy 
name."    Fame  and  glory  transports  a  man  out  of  himself ;  and, 


PREVENTION  OF  SIN  AN  INVALUABLE  MERC V. 


363 


like  a  violent  wind,  though  it  may  bear  him  up  a  while,  yet  it  will 
be  sure  to  let  him  fall  at  last.  It  makes  the  mind  loose  and 
garish,  scatters  the  spirits,  and  leaves  a  kind  of  dissolution  upon 
all  the  faculties.  Whereas,  shame  on  the  contrary,  as  all  grief 
does,  naturally  contracts  and  unites,  and  thereby  fortifies  the 
spirits,  and  fixes  the  ramblings  of  fancy,  and  so  reduces  and 
gathers  the  man  into  himself.  This  is  the  sovereign  effect  of  a 
bitter  potion,  administered  by  a  wise  and  merciful  hand  :  and  what 
hurt  can  there  be  in  all  the  slanders,  obloquies,  and  disgraces  of  this 
world,  if  they  are  but  the  arts  and  methods  of  Providence  to  shame 
us  into  the  glories  of  the  next  ?    But  then, 

Thirdly  and  lastly,  Has  God  thought  fit  to  cast  thy  lot  amongst 
the  poor  of  this  world,  and  that  either  by  denying  thee  any  share 
of  the  plenties  of  this  life,  which  is  something  grievous :  or  by 
taking  them  away,  which  is  much  more  so  ?  Yet  still  all  this  may 
be  but  the  effect  of  preventing  mercy.  For  so  much  mischief  as 
riches  have  done  and  may  do  to  the  souls  of  men,  so  much 
mercy  may  there  be  in  taking  them  away.  For  does  not  the 
wisest  of  men,  next  our  Saviour,  tell  us  of  "riches  kept  to  the 
hurt  of  the  owners  of  them?"  Eccles.  v.  13.  And  does  not  our 
Saviour  himself  speak  of  the  intolerable  difficulty  which  they 
cause  in  men's  passage  to  heaven  ?  Do  they  not  make  the  narrow 
way  much  narrower ;  and  contract  the  gate  which  leads  to  life  to 
the  straightness  of  a  needle's  eye  ? 

And  now,  if  God  will  fit  thee  for  this  passage,  by  taking  off 
thy  load,  and  emptying  thy  bags,  and  so  suit  the  narrowness  of  thy 
fortune  to  the  narrowness  of  the  way  thou  art  to  pass,  is  there  any 
thing  but  mercy  in  all  this  ?  Nay,  are  not  the  riches  of  his  mercy 
conspicuous  in  the  poverty  of  thy  condition  ? 

Thou  who  repinest  at  the  plenty  and  splendour  of  thy  neighbour, 
at  the  greatness  of  his  incomes,  and  the  magnificence  of  his  retinue  ; 
consider  what  are  frequently  the  dismal,  wretched  consequences  of 
all  this,  and  thou  wilt  have  little  cause  to  envy  this  gaudy  great  one, 
or  to  wish  thyself  in  his  room. 

For  do  we  not  often  hear  of  this  or  that  young  heir  newly  come 
to  his  father's  vast  estate  ?  A  happy  man  no  doubt !  But 
does  not  the  town  presently  ring  of  his  debaucheries,  his  blasphe- 
mies, and  his  murders  ?  Are  not  his  riches  and  his  lewdnesses 
talked  of  together?  and  the  odiousness  of  one  heightened  and 
set  off  by  the  greatness  of  the  other?  Are  not  his  oaths,  his 
riots,  and  other  villanies,  reckoned  by  as  many  thousands  as  his 
estate  ? 

Nowr,  consider,  had  this  grand  debauchee,  this  glittering  mon- 
ster, been  born  to  thy  poverty  and  mean  circumstances,  he  could 
not  have  contracted  such  a  clamorous  guilt,  he  could  not  have  been 
so  bad  :  nor,  perhaps,  had  thy  birth  instated  thee  in  the  same  wealth 
and  greatness,  wouldst  thou  have  been  at  all  better. 

This  God  foresaw  and  knew,  in  the  ordering  both  of  his  and 


364 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXII. 


thy  condition :  and  which  of  the  two  now,  can  we  think,  is  the 
greater  debtor  to  his  preventing  mercy  ?  Lordly  sins  require  lordly 
estates  to  support  them :  and  where  Providence  denies  the  latter,  it 
cuts  off  all  temptation  to  the  former. 

And  thus  I  have  shown  by  particular  instances,  what  cause  men 
have  to  acquiesce  in  and  submit  to  the  harshest  dispensations 
that  Providence  can  measure  out  to  them  in  this  life ;  and 
with  what  satisfaction,  or  rather  gratitude,  that  ought  to  be  en- 
dured, by  which  the  greatest  of  mischiefs  is  prevented.  The 
,great  Physician  of  souls  sometimes  cannot  cure  without  cutting 
us.  Sin  has  festered  inwardly,  and  he  must  lance  the  impos- 
thume,  to  let  out  death  with  the  suppuration.  He  who  ties  a 
madman's  hands,  or  takes  away  his  sword,  loves  his  person,  while 
he*  disarms  his  frenzy.  And  whether  by  health  or  sickness, 
honour  or  disgrace,  wealth  or  poverty,  life  or  death,  mercy  is  still 
contriving,  acting,  and  carrying  on  the  spiritual  good  of  all  those 
who  love  God  and  are  loved  by  him. 

To  whom,  therefore,  be  rendered,  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due, 
all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  ever- 
more. Amen. 


365 


SERMON  XXIII. 

AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

[Two  Sermons  before  the  University  at  Christ  Church,  Oxon,  the  first  preached 
on  November  I,  1691.] 

1  John  hi.  21. 

Beloved,  if  our  heart  condemn  us  not,  then  have  we  confidence 
toward  God. 

As  nothing  can  be  of  more  moment,  so  few  things,  doubtless, 
are  of  more  difficulty,  than  for  men  to  be  rationally  satisfied  about 
the  estate  of  their  souls,  with  reference  to  God  and  the  great  con- 
cerns of  eternity.  In  their  judgment  about  which,  if  they  err 
finally,  it  is  like  a  man's  missing  his  cast,  when  he  throws  dice  for 
his  life ;  his  being,  his  happiness,  and  all  that  he  does  or  can 
enjoy  in  the  world,  is  involved  in  the  error  of  one  throw.  And 
therefore  it  may  very  well  deserve  our  best  skill  and  care,  to  in- 
quire into  those  rules,  by  which  we  may  guide  our  judgment  in  so 
weighty  an  affair,  both  with  safety  and  success.  And  this,  I  think, 
cannot  be  better  done,  than  by  separating  the  false  and  fallacious 
from  the  true  and  certain.  For  if  the  rule  we  judge  by  be  un- 
certain, it  is  odds  but  we  shall  judge  wrong ;  and,  if  we  should 
judge  right,  yet  it  is  not  properly  skill,  but  chance  ;  not  a  true 
judgment,  but  a  lucky  hit :  which,  certainly,  the  eternal  interests 
of  an  immortal  soul  are  of  much  too  high  a  value  to  be  left  at 
the  mercy  of. 

First  of  all  then  :  he  who  would  pass  such  a  judgment  upon  his 
condition,  as  shall  be  ratified  in  heaven,  and  confirmed  at  that 
great  tribunal  from  which  there  lies  no  appeal,  will  find  himself 
woefully  deceived,  if  he  judges  of  his  spiritual  estate  by  any  of 
these  four  following  measures  :  As, 

1.  The  general  esteem  of  the  world  concerning  him.  He  who 
owes  his  piety  to  fame  and  hearsay,  and  the  evidences  of  his  sal- 
vation to  popular  voice  and  opinion,  builds  his  house  not  only 
upon  the  sand,  but,  which  is  worse,  upon  the  wind ;  and  writes 
the  deeds,  by  which  he  holds  his  estate,  upon  the  face  of  a  river. 
He  makes  a  bodily  eye  to  judge  of  things  impossible  to  be  seen  ; 
and  humour  and  ignorance,  which  the  generality  of  men  both 
think  and  speak  by,  the  great  proofs  of  his  justification.  But 
surely  no  man  has  the  estate  of  his  soul  drawn  upon  his  face,  nor 
the  decree  of  his  election  written  upon  his  forehead.  He  who 
would  know  a  man  thoroughly,  must  follow  him  into  the  closet 

2  h  2 


366 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIII. 


of  his  heart ;  the  door  of  which  is  kept  shut  to  all  the  world  be- 
sides, and  the  inspection  of  which  is  only  the  prerogative  of 
Omniscience. 

The  favourable  opinion  and  good  word  of  men,  to  some  per- 
sons especially,  comes  oftentimes  at  a  very  easy  rate  ;  and  by  a 
few  demure  looks  and  affected  whines,  set  off  with  some  odd 
devotional  postures  and  grimaces,  and  such  other  little  arts  of 
dissimulation,  cunning  men  will  do  wonders,  and  commence  pre- 
sently heroes  for  sanctity,  self-denial,  and  sincerity,  while  within 
perhaps  they  are  as  proud  as  Lucifer,  as  covetous  as  Demas,  as 
false  as  Judas  ;  and,  in  the  whole  course  of  their  conversation  act 
and  are  acted,  not  by  devotion,  but  design. 

So  that,  for  ought  I  see,  though  the  Mosaical  part  of  Judaism 
be  abolished  amongst  Christians,  the  Pharisaical  part  of  it  never 
will.  A  grave,  stanch,  skilfully  managed  face,  set  upon  a  grasp- 
ing, aspiring  mind,  having  got  many  a  sly  formalist  the  reputation 
of  a  primitive  and  severe  piety,  forsooth,  and  made  many  such 
mountebanks  pass  admired,  even  for  saints  upon  earth,  as  the 
word  is,  who  are  like  to  be  so  nowhere  else. 

But  a  man  who  had  never  seen  the  stately  outside  of  a  tomb  or 
pai  ited  sepulchre  before,  may  very  well  be  excused,  if  he  takes  it 
rather  for  the  repository  of  some  rich  treasure  than  of  a  noisome 
corpse  ;  but  should  he  but  once  open  and  rake  into  it,  though  he 
could  not  see,  he  would  quickly  smell  out  his  mistake.  The 
greatest  part  of  the  world  is  nothing  but  appearance,  nothing  but 
show  and  surface  ;  and  many  make  it  their  business,  their  study, 
and  concern,  that  it  should- be  so:  who,  having  for  many  years 
together  deceived  all  about  them,  are  at  last  willing  to  deceive 
themselves  too  ;  and  by  a  long,  immemorial  practice,  and,  as  it 
were,  prescription  of  an  aged,  thorough-paced  hypocrisy,  come  at 
length  to  believe  that  for  a  reality,  which,  at  the  first  practice  of  it, 
they  themselves  knew  to  be  a  cheat.  But  if  men  love  to  be 
deceived  and  fooled  about  so  great  an  interest  as  that  of  their 
spiritual  estate,  it  must  be  confessed,  that  they  cannot  take  a  surei 
and  more  effectual  course  to  be  so,  than  by  taking  their  neigh- 
bour's word  for  that  which  can  be  known  to  them  only  from  their 
own  hearts.  For  certainly  it  is  not  more  absurd  to  undertake  to 
tell  the  name  of  an  unknown  person  by  his  looks,  than  to  vouch 
a  man's  saintship  from  the  vogue  of  the  world,  founded  upon  his 
external  behaviour. 

2.  The  judgment  of  any  casuist  or  learned  divine,  concerning 
the  estate  of  a  man's  soul,  is  not  sufficient  to  give  him  confidence 
towards  God.  And  the  reason  is,  because  no  learning  whatso- 
ever can  give  a  man  the  knowledge  of  another's  heart.  Besides, 
that  it  is  more  than  possible  that  the  most  profound  and  expe- 
rienced casuist  in  the  world  may  mistake  in  his  judgment  of  a 
man's  spiritual  condition  ;  and  if  he  does  judge  right,  yet  the 
man  cannot  be  sure  that  he  will  declare  that  judgment  sincerely 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


367 


and  impartially,  the  greatest  clerks  being  not  always  the  honestest, 
any  more  than  the  wisest  men,  but  may  purposely  soothe  a  man  up 
for  hope  or  fear,  or  the  service  of  some  sinister  interest ;  and  to 
show  him  the  face  of  a  foul  soul  in  a  flattering  glass :  considering 
how  much  the  raising  in  some  men  a  false  hope  of  another  world, 
may  with  others  serve  a  real  interest  in  this. 

There  is  a  generation  of  men,  who  have  framed  their  casuistical 
divinity  to  a  perfect  compliance  with  all  the  corrupt  affections 
of  a  man's  nature :  and  by  that  new  invented  engine  of  the  doc- 
trine of  probability,  will  undertake  to  warrant  and  quiet  the 
sinner's  conscience  in  the  commission  of  any  sin  whatsoever,  pro- 
vided there  be  but  the  opinion  of  one  learned  man  to  vouch  it. 
For  this,  they  say,  is  a  sufficient  ground  for  the  conscience  of 
any  unlearned  person  to  rely  and  to  act  upon.  So  that  if  but 
one  doctor  asserts  that  I  may  lawfully  kill  a  man  to  prevent  a  box 
on  the  ear,  or  a  calumny,  by  which  he  would  otherwise  asperse  my 
good  name,  I  may  with  a  good  conscience  do  it ;  nay,  I  may  safely 
rest  upon  this  one  casuist's  judgment,  though  thousands,  as  learned 
as  himself,  yea,  and  the  express  law  of  God  besides,  affirm  quite 
the  contrary.  But  these  spiritual  engineers  know  well  enough  how 
to  deal  with  any  commandment,  either  by  taking  or  expounding  it 
away  at  their  pleasure. 

Such  an  ascendant  have  these  Romish  casuists  over  scripture, 
reason,  and  morality ;  much  like  what  is  said  of  the  stupid,  mo- 
dern Jews,  that  they  have  subdued  their  sense  and  reason  to  such 
a  sottish  servitude  to  their  rabbies,  as  to  hold,  that  in  case  two  rab- 
bies  should  happen  to  contradict  one  another,  they  were  yet  bound 
to  believe  the  contradictory  assertions  of  both  to  be  equally  certain, 
and  equally  the  word  of  God ;  such  an  iron-digesting  faith  have 
they,  and  such  pity  it  is,  that  there  should  be  no  such  thing  in  Ju- 
daism as  transubstantiation  to  emplov  it  upon. 

But  as  for  these  casuists  whom  I  have  been  speaking  of ;  if  the 
judgment  of  one  doctor  may  authorize  the  practice  of  any  action, 
I  believe,  it  will  be  hard  to  find  any  sort  or  degree  of  villany 
which  the  corruption  of  man's  nature  is  capable  of  committing, 
which  shall  not  meet  with  a  defence.  And  of  this  I  could  give 
such  an  instance  from  something  written  by  a  certain  prelate  of 
theirs,  cardinal  and  archbishop  of  Beneventum,  as  were  enough, 
not  only  to  astonish  all  pious  ears,  but  almost  to  unconsecrate  the 
very  church  I  speak  in. 

But  the  truth  is,  the  way  by  which  these  Romish  casuists  speak 
peace  to  the  consciences  of  men,  is  either  by  teaching  them,  that 
many  actions  are  not  sins,  which  yet  really  are  so ;  or  by  sug- 
gesting something  to  them,  which  shall  satisfy  their  minds,  not- 
withstanding a  known,  actual,  avowed  continuance  in  their  sins ; 
such  as  are  their  pardons  and  indulgences,  and  giving  men  a 
share  in  the  saints'  merits,  out  of  the  common  bank  and  treasury 
of  the  church,  which  the  pope  has  the  sole  custody  and  disposal 


368 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS.  [sERM.  XXIII. 


of,  and  is  never  kept  shut  to  such  as  come  with  an  open  hand.  So 
that  according  to  these  new  evangelists,  well  may  we  pronounce, 
"  Blessed  are  the  rich,  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  But 
God  deliver  the  world  from  such  guides,  or  rather  such  hucksters 
of  souls,  the  very  shame  of  religion,  and  the  shameless  subverters 
of  morality.  And  it  is  really  matter  both  of  wonder  and  indigna- 
tion, that  such  impostors  should  at  all  concern  themselves  about 
rules  or  directions  of  conscience,  who  seem  to  have  no  consciences 
to  apply  them  to. 

3.  The  absolution  pronounced  by  a  priest,  whether  papist  or  pro- 
testant,  is  not  a  certain,  infallible  ground,  to  give  the  person  so  ab- 
solved confidence  towards  God :  and  the  reason  is,  because  if 
absolution,  as  such,  could  of  itself  secure  a  man,  as  to  the  estate  of 
his  soul,  then  it  would  follow,  that  every  person,  so  absolved, 
should,  by  virtue  thereof,  be  ipso  facto  put  into  such  a  condition  of 
safety  ;  which  is  not  imaginable. 

For  the  absolution  pronounced  must  be  either  conditional,  as 
running  upon  the  conditions  of  faith  and  repentance  ;  and  then, 
if  those  conditions  are  not  found  in  the  person  so  absolved,  it  is 
but  a  seal  to  a  blank,  and  so  a  mere  nullity  to  him.  Or,  the  abso- 
lution must  be  pronounced  in  terms  absolute  and  unconditional : 
and  if  so,  then  the  said  absolution  becomes  valid  and  effectual, 
either  by  virtue  of  the  state  of  the  person,  to  whom  it  was  pro- 
nounced, as  being  a  true  penitent,  or  by  virtue  of  the  opus  opera- 
turn,  or  bare  action  itself  of  the  priest  absolving  him.  If  it 
receives  its  validity  from  the  former ;  then  it  is  clear,  that 
although  it  runs  in  forms  absolute,  yet  it  is  indeed  conditional, 
as  depending  upon  the  qualification  of  the  person  to  whom  it  is 
pronounced  ;  who  therefore  owes  the  remission  of  his  sins,  not 
properly  to  the  priest's  absolution,  but  to  his  own  repentance,  wThich 
made  that  absolution  effectual,  and  would  undoubtedly  have  saved 
him,  though  the  priest  had  never  absolved  him. 

But  if  it  be  asserted,  that  the  very  action  of  the  priest  absolving 
him  has  of  itself  this  virtue :  then  we  must  grant  also,  that 
it  is  in  the  priest's  power  to  save  a  man,  who  never  repented,  nor 
did  one  good  work  in  all  his  life;  forasmuch  as  it  is  in  his  power 
to  perform  this  action  upon  him  in  full  form,  and  with  full  inten- 
tion to  absolve  him.  But  the  horrible  absurdity,  blasphemy,  and 
impiety  of  this  assertion,  sufficiently  proclaims  its  falsity  without 
any  further  confutation. 

In  a  word,  if  a  man  be  a  penitent,  his  repentance  stamps 
his  absolution  effectual.  If  not,  let  the  priest  repeat  the  same 
absolution  to  him  ten  thousand  times :  yet  for  all  his  being  ab- 
solved in  this  world,  God  will  condemn  him  in  the  other.  And 
consequently  he  who  places  his  salvation  upon  this  ground,  will 
find  himself  like  an  imprisoned  and  condemned  malefactor,  who 
in  the  night  dreams  that  he  is  released,  but  in  the  morning  finds 
himself  led  to  the  gallows. 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE.  369 

4.  And  lastly,  no  advantages  from  external  church  member- 
ship, or  profession  of  the  true  religion,  can  of  themselves  give  a 
man  confidence  towards  God  :  and  yet  perhaps  there  is  hardly 
any  one  thing  in  the  world  which  men,  in  all  ages,  have  generally 
more  cheated  themselves  with.  The  Jews  were  an  eminent 
instance  of  this :  who,  because  they  were  the  sons  of  Abraham, 
as  it  is  readily  acknowledged  by  our  Saviour,  John  viii.  37,  and 
because  they  were  entrusted  with  the  oracles  of  God,  Rom.  iii.  2, 
together  with  the  covenants  and  the  promises,  Rom.  ix.  4  :  that 
is,  in  other  words,  because  they  were  the  true  church,  and  pro- 
fessors of  the  true  religion,  while  all  the  world  about  them  lay 
wallowing  in  ignorance,  heathenism,  and  idolatry,  they  concluded 
from  hence,  that  God  was  so  fond  of  them,  that  notwithstanding 
all  their  villanies  and  immoralities,  they  were  still  the  darlings  of 
heaven,  and  the  only  heirs-apparent  of  salvation.  They  thought, 
it  seems,  God  and  themselves  linked  together  in  so  fast,  but 
withal  so  strange  a  covenant,  that  although  they  never  performed 
their  part  of  it,  God  was  yet  bound  to  make  good  every  tittle  of 
his. 

And  this  made  John  the  Baptist  set  himself  with  so  much 
acrimony  and  indignation  to  baffle  this  senseless,  arrogant  conceit 
of  theirs,  which  made  them  huff  at  the  doctrine  of  repentance,  as 
a  thing  below  them,  and  not  at  all  belonging  to  them ;  in  Matt, 
iii.  9,  "  Think  not,"  says  he,  "  to  say  within  yourselves,  We  have 
Abraham  to  our  father."  This,  he  knew,  lay  deep  in  their  hearts, 
and  was  still  in  their  mouths,  and  kept  them  insolent  and  im- 
penitent under  sins  of  the  highest  and  most  clamorous  guilt ; 
though  our  Saviour  himself  also,  not  long  after  this,  assured  them 
that  they  were  of  a  very  different  stock  and  parentage  from  that 
which  they  boasted  of ;  and  that  whosoever  was  their  father  upon 
the  natural  account,  the  devil  was  certainly  so  upon  a  moral. 

In  like  manner,  how  vainly  do  the  Romanists  pride  and  value 
themselves  upon  the  name  of  catholics,  of  the  catholic  religion,  and 
of  the  catholic  church  !  Though  a  title  no  more  applicable  to  the 
church  of  Rome,  than  a  man's  finger  when  it  is  swelled  and 
putrefied,  can  be  called  his  whole  body  :  a  church  which  allows 
salvation  to  none  without  it,  nor  awards  damnation  to  almost  any 
within  it.  And  therefore,  as  the  former  empty  plea  served  the 
sottish  Jews ;  so,  no  wonder  if  this  equally  serves  these,  to  put 
them  into  a  fool's  paradise,  by  feeding  their  hopes,  without 
changing  their  lives ;  and,  as  an  excellent  expedient,  first  to  as- 
sure them  of  heaven,  and  then  to  bring  them  easily  to  it ;  and  so 
in  a  word,  to  save  both  their  souls  and  their  sins  too. 

And  to  show  how  the  same  cheat  runs  through  all  professions, 
though  not  in  the  same  dress  ;  none  are  more  powerfully  and 
grossly  under  it,  than  another  sort  of  men,  who,  on  the  contrary, 
place  their  whole  acceptance  with  God,  and  indeed  their  whole 
religion,  upon  a  mighty  zeal,  or  rather  outcry,  against  popery  and 

Vol.  I.— 47 


370 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIII. 


superstition ;  verbally,  indeed,  uttered  against  the  church  of 
Rome,  but  really  against  the  church  of  England.  To  which  sort 
of  persons  I  shall  say  no  more  but  this,  and  that  in  the  spirit  of 
truth  and  meekness,  namely,  that  zeal  and  noise  against  popery, 
and  real  services  for  it,  are  no  such  inconsistent  things  as  some 
may  imagine  ;  indeed,  no  more  than  invectives  against  papists,  and 
solemn  addresses  of  thanks  to  them,  for  that  very  thing,  by  which 
they  would  have  brought  in  popery  upon  us.  And  if  those  of  the 
separation  do  not  yet  know  so  much,  thanks  to  them  for  it,  we  of 
the  church  of  England  do  ;  and  so  may  they  themselves  too,  in 
due  time.  I  speak  not  this  by  way  of  sarcasm,  to  reproach 
them  (I  leave  that  to  their  own  consciences,  which  will  do  it 
more  effectually),  but  by  way  of  charity  to  warn  them :  for  let 
them  be  assured,  that  this  whole  scene  and  practice  of  theirs  is  as 
really  superstition,  and  as  false  a  bottom  to  rest  their  souls  upon,  as 
either  the  Jews'  alleging  Abraham  for  their  father,  while  the  devil 
claimed  them  for  his  children  ;  or  the  papists  relying  upon  their 
indulgences,  their  saint's  merits  and  supererogations,  and  such  other 
fopperies,  as  can  never  settle,  nor  indeed  so  much  as  reach,  the 
conscience  ;  and  much  less  recommend  it  to  that  Judge,  who  is  not 
to  be  flammed  off  with  words,  and  phrases,  and  names,  though 
taken  out  of  the  scripture  itself. 

Nay,  and  I  shall  proceed  yet  further.  It  is  not  a  man's  being 
of  the  church  of  England  itself  (though  undoubtedly  the  purest 
and  best  reformed  church  in  the  world ;  indeed,  so  well  reformed, 
that  it  will  be  found  a  much  easier  work  to  alter,  than  to  better 
its  constitution) ;  I  say,  it  is  not  a  man's  being  even  of  this 
excellent  church,  which  can  of  itself  clear  accounts  between  God 
and  his  conscience  ;  since  bare  communion  with  a  good  church, 
can  never  alone  make  a  good  man  ;  for  if  it  could,  I  am  sure  we 
should  have  no  bad  ones  in  ours ;  and  much  less  such  as  wrould 
betray  it. 

So  that  we  see  here,  that  it  is  but  too  manifest  that  men  of  all 
churches  and  persuasions  are  strangely  apt  to  flatter  and  deceive 
themselves  with  what  they  believe,  and  what  they  profess:  and 
if  we  thoroughly  consider  the  matter,  we  shall  find  the  fallacy  to 
lie  in  this  ;  that  those  religious  institutions,  which  God  designed 
only  for  means,  helps,  and  advantages,  to  promote  and  further 
men  in  the  practice  of  holiness,  they  look  upon  rather  as  a 
privilege  to  serve  them  instead  of  it,  and  really  to  commute  for 
it.  This  is  the  very  case,  and  a  fatal  self-imposture  it  is  certainly, 
and  such  a  one  as  defeats  the  design  and  destroys  the  force  of  all 
religion. 

And  thus  I  have  shown  four  several  uncertain  and  deceitful  rules, 
which  men  are  prone  to  judge  of  their  spiritual  estate  by. 

But  now,  have  we  any  better  or  more  certain  to  substitute  and 
recommend  in  the  room  of  them  ?  Why,  yes  ;  if  we  believe  the 
apostle,  a  man's  own  heart  or  conscience  is  that  which,  above  all 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


371 


other  things,  is  able  to  give  him  "  confidence  towards  God."  And 
the  reason  is,  because  the  heart  knows  that  by  itself,  which 
nothing:  in  the  world  besides  can  give  it  any  knowledge  of ;  and 
without  the  knowledge  of  which  it  can  have  no  foundation  to 
build  any  true  confidence  upon.  Conscience,  under  God,  is  the 
onlv  competent  judge  of  what  the  soul  has  done,  and  what  it  has 
not  done  ;  what  guilt  it  has  contracted,  and  what  it  has  not :  as  it 
is  in  1  Cor.  ii.  11,  "What  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man, 
save  the  spirit  of  man  which  is  in  him  ?"  Conscience  is  its  own 
counsellor,  the  sole  master  of  its  own  secrets :  and  it  is  the  privi- 
lege of  our  nature,  that  every-  man  should  keep  the  key  of  his  own 
breast. 

Now  for  the  further  prosecution  of  the  words,  I  shall  do  these 
four  things. 

L  I  shall  show  how  the  heart  or  conscience  ought  to  be  in- 
formed, in  order  to  its  founding  in  us  a  rational  confidence 
towards  God. 

II.  I  shall  show  how  and  by  what  means  we  may  get  it  thus  in- 
formed, and  afterwards  preserve  and  keep  it  so. 

III.  I  shall  show  whence  it  is  that  the  testimony  of  conscience 
thus  informed  comes  to  be  so  authentic,  and  so  much  to  be  relied 
upon.  And, 

TV.  And  lastly,  I  shall  assign  some  particular  cases  or  instances, 
in  which  the  confidence  suggested  by  it  does  most  eminently  show 
and  exert  itself. 

I.  And  first,  for  the  first  of  these,  how  the  heart  or  conscience 
ought  to  be  informed  in  order  to  its  founding  in  us  a  rational  con- 
fidence towards  God.  It  is  certain  that  no  man  can  have  any  such 
confidence  towards  God,  only  because  his  heart  tells  him  a  lie  ; 
and  that  it  may  do  so,  is  altogether  as  certain.  For  there  is  the 
erroneous,  as  well  as  the  rightly  informed  conscience  ;  and  if  the 
conscience  happens  to  be  deluded,  and  thereupon  to  give  false 
directions  to  the  will,  so  that  by  virtue  of  those  directions  it  is 
betrayed  into  a  course  of  sin,  sin  does  not  therefore  cease  to  be 
sin,  because  a  man  committed  it  conscientiously.  If  conscience 
comes  to  be  perverted  so  far,  as  to  bring  a  man  under  a  persua- 
sion that  it  is  either  lawful  or  his  duty,  to  resist  the  magistrate, 
to  seize  upon  his  neighbour's  just  rights  or  estate,  to  worship 
stocks  and  stones,  or  to  lie,  equivocate,  and  the  like,  this  will  not 
absolve  him  before  God  ;  since  error,  which  is  in  itself  evil,  can 
never  make  another  thing  good.  He  who  does  an  unwarrantable 
action,  through  a  false  information,  which  information  he  ought  not 
to  have  believed,  cannot  in  reason  make  the  guilt  of  one  sin  the 
excuse  of  another. 

Conscience  therefore  must  be  rightly  informed,  before  the 
testimony  of  it  can  be  authentic  in  what  it  pronounces  concern- 
ing the  estate  of  the  soul.    It  must  proceed  by  the  two  grand 


372 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIII. 


rules  of  right  reason  and  scripture  ;  these  are  the  compass  which 
it  must  steer  by.  For  conscience  comes  formally  to  oblige,  only  as 
it  is  the  messenger  of  the  mind  of  God  to  the  soul  of  man  ; 
which  he  has  revealed  to  him,  partly  by  the  impression  of  certain 
notions  and  maxims  upon  the  practical  understanding,  and  partly 
by  the  declared  oracles  of  his  word.  So  far  therefore  as  con- 
science reports  any  thing  agreeable  to,  or  deducible  from  these,  it 
is  to  be  hearkened  to,  as  the  great  conveyer  of  truth  to  the  soul ; 
but  when  it  reports  any  thing  dissonant  to  these,  it  obliges  no  more 
than  the  falsehood  reported  by  it. 

But  since  there  is  none  who  follows  an  erroneous  conscience, 
but  does  so  because  he  thinks  it  true,  and  moreover  thinks  it 
true,  because  he  is  persuaded  that  it  proceeds  according  to  the 
two  forementioned  rules  of  scripture  and  right  reason  ;  how  shall 
a  man  be  able  to  satisfy  himself,  when  his  conscience  is  rightly  in- 
formed, and  when  possessed  with  an  error  ?  For  to  affirm,  that 
the  sentence  passed  by  a  rightly  informed  conscience  gives  a  man 
a  rational  confidence  towards  God  ;  but,  in  the  mean  time,  not  to 
assign  any  means  possible,  by  which  he  may  know  when  his  con- 
science is  thus  rightly  informed,  and  when  not,  it  must  equally 
bereave  him  of  such  confidence ;  as  placing  the  condition  upon 
which  it  depends  wholly  out  of  his  knowledge. 

Here  therefore  is  the  knot,  here  the  difficulty,  how  to  state 
some  rule  of  certainty,  by  which  infallibly  to  distinguish  when  the 
conscience  is  right,  and  to  be  relied  upon  ;  when  erroneous,  and  to 
be  distrusted,  in  the  testimony  it  gives  about  the  sincerity  and  safety 
of  a  man's  spiritual  condition. 

For  the  resolution  of  which,  I  answer,  that  it  is  not  necessary 
for  a  man  to  be  assured  of  the  rightness  of  his  conscience,  by 
such  an  infallible  certainty  of  persuasion,  as  amounts  to  the  clear- 
ness of  a  demonstration ;  but  it  is  sufficient,  if  he  knows  it  upon 
grounds  of  such  a  convincing  probability,  as  shall  exclude  all 
rational  grounds  of  doubting  of  it.  For  I  cannot  think  that  the 
confidence  here  spoken  of  rises  so  high  as  to  assurance.  And  the 
reason  is,  because  it  is  manifestly  such  a  confidence  as  is  common 
to  all  sincere  Christians.  Which  yet,  assurance,  we  all  know, 
is  not. 

The  truth  is,  the  word  in  the  original,  which  is  it*$>faalay 
signifies  properly  freedom  or  boldness  of  speech;  though  the 
Latin  translation  renders  it  by  fiducia,  and  so  corresponds  with 
the  English,  which  renders  it  u  confidence."  But  whether  fducia, 
or  "  confidence,"  reaches  the  full  sense  of  rialfaato,  may  very 
well  be  disputed.  However  it  is  certain,  that  neither  the  word 
in  the  original,  nor  yet  in  the  translation,  imports  assurance.  For 
freedom,  or  boldness  of  speech,  I  am  sure  does  not;  and  fiducia  y 
or  confidence,  signifies  only  a  man's  being  actually  persuaded  of  a 
thing,  upon  better  arguments  for  it,  than  any  that  he  can  see 
against  it :  which  he  may  very  well  be,  and  yet  not  be  assured  of  it. 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


373 


From  all  which  I  conclude,  that  the  confidence  here  mentioned 
in  the  text,  amounts  to  no  more  than  a  rational,  well  grounded 
hope :  such  a  one,  as  the  apostle  tells  us,  in  Rom.  v.  5,  "  maketh 
not  ashamed." 

And  upon  these  terms,  I  affirm,  that  such  a  conscience,  as  has 
employed  the  utmost  of  its  ability  to  give  itself  the  best  informa- 
tion and  clearest  knowledge  of  its  duty  that  it  can,  is  a  rational 
ground  for  a  man  to  build  such  a  hope  upon ;  and,  consequently, 
for  him  to  confide  in. 

There  is  an  innate  light  in  every  man,  discovering  to  him  the 
first  lines  of  duty,  in  the  common  notions  of  good  and  evil ; 
which  by  cultivation  and  improvement,  may  be  advanced  to 
higher  and  brighter  discoveries.  And  from  hence  it  is,  that  the 
schoolmen  and  moralists  admit  not  of  any  ignorantia  juns,  speak- 
ing of  natural  moral  right,  to  give  excuse  to  sin.  Since  all  such 
ignorance  is  voluntary,  and  therefore  culpable  ;  forasmuch  as  it 
was  in  every  man's  power  to  have  prevented  it,  by  a  due  improve- 
ment of  the  light  of  nature,  and  the  seeds  of  moral  honesty  sown 
in  his  heart. 

If  it  be  here  demanded,  whether  a  man  may  not  remain  igno- 
rant of  his  duty  after  he  has  used  the  utmost  means  to  inform 
himself  of  it  ?  I  answer,  that  so  much  of  duty  as  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  save  him,  he  shall  upon  "4ie  use  of  such  a  course 
come  to  know  ;  and  that  which  he  continues  ignorant  of,  having 
done  the  utmost  lying  in  hijs  power,  that  he  might  not  be  ignorant 
of  it,  shall  never  damn  him.  Which  assertion  is  proved  thus  :  the 
gospel  damns  nobody  for  being  ignorant  of  that  which  he  is  not 
obliged  to  know ;  but  that  which,  upon  the  improvement  of  a  man's 
utmost  power,  he  cannot  know,  he  is  not  obliged  to  know  ;  for  that 
otherwise  he  would  be  obliged  to  an  impossibility  :  since  that  which 
is  out  of  the  compass  of  any  man's  power,  is  to  that  man  impossible. 

He  therefore  who  exerts  all  the  powers  and  faculties  of  his  soul, 
and  plies  all  means  and  opportunities  in  the  search  of  truth, 
which  God  has  vouchsafed  him,  may  rest  upon  the  judgment  of 
his  conscience  so  informed,  as  a  warrantable  guide  of  those  actions 
which  he  must  account  to  God  for.  And  if  by  following  such  a 
guide  he  falls  into  the  ditch,  the  ditch  shall  never  drown  him,  or  if 
it  should,  the  man  perishes  not  by  his  sin,  but  by  his  misfortune. 
In  a  word,  he  who  endeavours  to  know  the  utmost  of  his  duty  that 
he  can,  and  practises  the  utmost  that  he  knows,  has  the  equity  and 
goodness  of  the  great  God  to  stand  as  a  mighty  wall  or  rampart  be- 
tween him  and  damnation,  for  any  errors  or  infirmities,  which  the 
frailty  of  his  condition  has  invincibly,  and  therefore  inculpably,  ex- 
posed him  to. 

And  if  a  conscience  thus  qualified  and  informed  be  not  the 
measure  by  which  a  man  may  take  a  true  estimate  of  his  absolu- 
tion before  the  tribunal  of  God,  all  the  understanding  of  human 
nature  cannot  find  out  any  ground  for  the  sinner  to  pitch  the  sole 

2  I 


374 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIII. 


of  his  foot  upon,  or  rest  his  conscience  with  any  assurance,  but  is 
left  in  the  plunge  of  infinite  doubts  and  uncertainties,  suspicions 
and  misgivings,  both  as  to  the  measures  of  his  present  duty,  and 
the  final  issues  of  his  future  rewards. 

Let  this  conclusion  therefore  stand  as  the  firm  result  of  the 
foregoing  discourse,  and  the  foundation  of  what  is  to  follow: 
that  such  a  conscience  as  has  not  been  wanting  to  itself,  in 
endeavouring  to  get  the  utmost  and  clearest  information  about 
the  will  of  God,  that  its  power,  advantages,  and  opportunities 
could  afford  it,  is  that  internal  judge,  whose  absolution  is  a 
rational  and  sure  ground  of  confidence  towards  God.  And  so  I 
pass  to  the 

II.  Thing  proposed :  which  is  to  show,  how,  and  by  what 
means,  we  may  get  our  heart  or  conscience  thus  informed,  and  after- 
wards preserve  and  keep  it  so. 

In  order  to  which  amongst  many  things  that  might  be  alleged 
as  highly  useful,  and  conducing  to  this  great  work,  I  shall  insist 
upon  these  four  :  as, 

1.  Let  a  man  carefully  attend  to  the  voice  of  his  reason,  and 
all  the  dictates  of  natural  morality ;  so  as  by  no  means  to  do  any 
thing  contrary  to  them.  For  though  reason  is  not  to  be  relied 
upon,  as  a  guide  universally  sufficient  to  direct  us  what  to  do  ;  yet 
it  is  generally  to  be  relied  upon  and  obeyed,  where  it  tells  us 
what  we  are  not  to  do.  It  is  indeed  but  a  weak  and  diminutive 
light,  compared  to  revelation ;  but  it  ought  to  be  no  disparage- 
ment to  a  star,  that  it  is  not  a  sun.  Nevertheless,  as  weak  and 
as  small  as  it  is,  it  is  a  light  always  at  hand,  and  though  enclosed, 
as  it  were,  in  a  dark  lantern,  may  yet  be  of  singular  use  to  pre- 
vent many  a  foul  step,  and  to  keep  us  from  many  a  dangerous 
fall.  And  every  man  brings  such  a  degree  of  this  light  into  the 
wTorld  with  him ;  that  though  it  cannot  bring  him  to  heaven,  yet, 
if  he  be  true  to  it,  it  will  carry  him  a  great  way  ;  indeed  so  far,  that 
if  he  follows  it  faithfully,  I  doubt  not,  but  he  shall  meet  with  ano- 
ther light  which  shall  carry  him  quite  through. 

How  far  it  may  be  improved,  is  evident  from  that  high  and 
refined  morality,  which  shined  forth  both  in  the  lives  and  writings 
of  some  of  the  ancient  heathens,  who  yet  had  no  other  light  but 
this,  both  to  live  and  write  by.  For  how  great  a  man  in  virtue 
was  Cato,  of  whom  the  historian  gives  this  glorious  character; 
Esse  quam  videri  bonus  malebat  !  And  of  what  an  impregnable 
integrity  was  Fabricius,  of  whom  it  was  said,  that  a  man  might 
as  well  attempt  to  turn  the  sun  out  of  his  course,  as  to  bring 
Fabricius  to  do  a  base  or  a  dishonest  action.  And  then  for  their 
wTritings;  what  admirable  things  occur  in  the  remains  of  Pytha- 
goras, and  the  books  of  Plato,  and  of  several  other  philosophers ! 
Short,  I  confess,  of  the  rules  of  Christianity,  but  generally  above 
the  lives  of  Christians. 

Which  being  so,  ought  not  the  light  of  reason  to  be  looked 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE.  375 

upon  by  us  as  a  rich  and  a  noble  talent,  and  such  a  one  as  we 
must  account  to  God  for  ?  For  it  is  certainly  from  him.  It  is  a 
ray  of  divinity-  darted  into  the  soul.  It  is  the  "  candle  of  the 
Lord,"  as  Solomon  calls  it,  and  God  never  lights  us  up  a  candle 
either  to  put  out  or  to  sleep  by.  If  it  be  made  conscious  to  a 
work  of  darkness,  it  will  not  fail  to  discover  and  reprove  it ;  and 
therefore  the  checks  of  it  are  to  be  revered,  as  the  echo  of  a  voice 
from  heaven  ;  for,  whatsoever  conscience  binds  here  on  earth,  will 
be  certainly  bound  there  too :  and  it  were  a  great  vanity  to  hope 
or  imagine,  that  either  law  or  gospel  will  absolve  what  natural 
conscience  condemns.  No  man  ever  yet  offended  his  own  con- 
science, but  first  or  last  it  was  revenged  upon  him  for  it.  So  that 
it  will  concern  a  man  to  treat  this  great  principle  awfully  and 
warily,  by  still  observing  what  it  commands,  but  especially  what 
it  forbids :  and  if  he  would  have  it  always  a  faithful  and  sincere 
monitor  to  him,  let  him  be  sure  never  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  it ; 
for  not  to  hear  it  is  the  way  to  silence  it.  Let  him  strictly  ob- 
serve the  first  stirrings  and  intimations,  the  first  hints  and  whispers 
of  good  and  evil,  that  pass  in  his  heart ;  and  this  will  keep  con- 
science so  quick  and  vigilant,  and  ready  to  give  a  man  true  alarms 
upon  the  least  approach  of  his  spiritual  enemy,  that  he  shall  be 
hardly  capable  of  a  great  surprise. 

On  the  contrary,  if  a  man  accustoms  himself  to  slight  or  pass 
over  these  first  motions  to  good,  or  shrinkings  of  his  conscience 
from  evil,  which  originally  are  as  natural  to  the  heart  of  man  as 
the  appetites  of  hunger  and  thirst  are  to  the  stomach;  conscience 
will  by  degrees  grow  dull  and  unconcerned  ;  and  from  not  spying 
out  motes,  come  at  length  to  overlook  beams ;  from  carelessness 
it  shall  fall  into  a  slumber,  and  from  a  slumber  it  shall  settle  into  a 
deep  and  long  sleep  ;  till  at  last,  perhaps  it  sleeps  itself  into  a 
lethargy,  and  that  such  a  one,  that  nothing  but  hell  and  judgment 
shall  be  able  to  awaken  it.  For  long  disuse  of  any  thing  made  for 
action,  will  in  time  take  away  the  very  use  of  it.  As  I  have 
read  of  one,  who  having  for  a  disguise  kept  one  of  his  eyes  a  long 
time  covered,  when  he  took  off  the  covering,  found  his  eye  indeed 
where  it  was,  but  his  sight  was  gone.  He  who  would  keep  his  con- 
science awake,  must  be  careful  to  keep  it  stirring. 

2.  Let  a  man  be  very  tender  and  regardful  of  every  pious 
motion  and  suggestion  made  by  the  Spirit  of  God  to  his  heart. 
I  do  not  hereby  go  about  to  establish  enthusiasm,  or  such  fantas- 
tic pretences  of  intercourse  with  God,  as  papists  and  fanatics, 
who  in  most  things  copy  from  one  another,  as  well  as  rail  at  one 
another,  do  usually  boast  of.  But  certainly,  if  the  evil  spirit 
may,  and  often  does  suggest  wicked  and  vile  thoughts  to  the 
minds  of  men ;  as  all  do  and  must  grant,  and  is  sufficiently 
proved  from  the  devil's  putting  it  into  the  heart  of  Judas  to 
betray  Christ,  John  xiii.  2,  and  his  filling  the  heart  of  Ananias 
to  lie  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  Acts  v.  3,  it  cannot  after  this,  with 


376 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIII. 


any  colour  of  reason,  be  doubted  but  that  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God, 
whose  power  and  influence  to  good  is  much  greater  than  that  of  the 
evil  spirit  to  evil,  does  frequently  inject  into,  and  imprint  upon  the 
soul  many  blessed  motions  and  impulses  to  duty,  and  many  power- 
ful avocations  from  sin.  So  that  a  man  shall  not  only,  as  the  pro- 
phet says,  "  hear  a  voice  behind  him,"  but  also  a  voice  within 
him,  telling  him  which  way  he  ought  to  go. 

For  doubtless  there  is  something  more  in  those  expressions  of 
being  led  by  the  Spirit  and  being  taught  by  the  Spirit,  and  the  like, 
than  mere  tropes  and  metaphors  ;  and  nothing  less  is  or  can  be  im- 
ported by  them,  than  that  God  sometimes  speaks  to  and  converses 
with  the  hearts  of  men,  immediately  by  himself :  and  happy  those, 
who  by  thus  hearing  him  speak  in  a  still  voice  shall  prevent  his 
speaking  to  them  in  thunder. 

But  you  will  here  ask,  perhaps,  how  we  shall  distinguish  in 
such  motions,  which  of  them  proceed  immediately  from  the 
Spirit  of  God,  and  which  from  the  conscience  ?  In  answer  to 
which,  I  must  confess  that  I  know  no  certain  mark  of  discrimi- 
nation to  distinguish  them  by ;  save  only  in  general,  that  such 
as  proceed  immediately  from  God,  use  to  strike  the  mind  suddenly 
and  very  powerfully.  But  then  I  add  also,  that  as  the  know- 
ledge of  this,  in  point  of  speculation,  is  so  nice  and  difficult,  so, 
thanks  be  to  God,  in  point  of  practice  it  is  not  necessary.  But 
let  a  man  universally  observe  and  obey  every  good  motion  rising 
in  his  heart,  knowing  that  every  such  motion  proceeds  from  God, 
either  mediately  or  immediately  ;  and  that,  whether  God  speaks  im- 
mediately by  himself  to  the  conscience,  or  mediately  by  the  con- 
science to  the  soul,  the  authority  is  the  same  in  both,  and  the  con- 
tempt of  either  is  rebellion. 

Now  the  thing  which  I  drive  at,  under  this  head  of  discourse, 
is  to  show,  that  as  God  is  sometimes  pleased  to  address  himself 
in  this  manner  to  the  hearts  of  men ;  so,  if  the  heart  will  receive 
and  answer  such  motions  by  a  ready  and  obsequious  compliance 
with  them,  there  is  no  doubt  but  they  will  both  return  more  fre- 
quently, and  still  more  and  more  powerfully,  till  at  length  they 
produce  such  a  degree  of  light  in  the  conscience,  as  shall  give  a 
man  both  a  clear  sight  of  his  duty,  and  a  certain  judgment  of  his 
condition. 

On  the  contrary,  as  all  resistance  whatsoever  of  the  dictates 
of  conscience,  even  in  the  way  of  natural  efficiency,  brings  a 
kind  of  hardness  and  stupefaction  upon  it;  so  the  resistance  of 
these  peculiar  suggestions  of  the  Spirit,  will  cause  in  it  also  a 
judicial  hardness,  which  is  yet  worse  than  the  other:  so  that  God 
shall  withdraw  from  such  a  heart,  and  the  Spirit  being  grieved, 
shall  depart,  and  these  blessed  motions  shall  cease,  and  affect  and 
visit  it  no  more.  The  consequence  of  which  is  very  terrible  ;  as 
rendering  a  man  past  feeling.  And  the  less  he  feels  in  this  world, 
the  more  he  shall  be  sure  to  feel  in  the  next.  But, 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


377 


3.  Because  the  light  of  natural  conscience  is  in  many  things 
defective  and  dim,  and  the  internal  voice  of  God's  Spirit  not 
always  distinguishable,  above  all,  let  a  man  attend  to  the  mind 
of  God,  uttered  in  his  revealed  word:  I  say,  his  revealed  word. 
By  which  I  do  not  mean  that  mysterious^  extraordinary  (and  of 
late  so  much  studied)  book  called  the  Revelation,  and  which 
perhaps,  the  more  it  is  studied,  the  less  it  is  understood,  as  gene- 
rally either  finding  a  man  cracked,  or  making  him  so ;  but  I  mean 
those  other  writings  of  the  prophets  and  apostles,  which  exhibit 
to  us  a  plain,  sure,  perfect,  and  intelligible  rule  ;  a  rule  that  will 
neither  fail  or  distract  such  as  make  use  of  it.  A  rule  to  judge  of 
the  two  former  rules  by :  for  nothing  that  contradicts  the  revealed 
word  of  God  is  either  the  voice  of  right  reason,  or  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  ;  nor  is  it  possible  that  it  should  be  so  without  God's  contra- 
dicting himself. 

And  therefore  we  see,  what  high  elogies  are  given  to  the  written 
word,  by  the  inspired  penmen  of  both  Testaments  :  "  Itgiveth  un- 
derstanding to  the  simple,"  says  David  in  Psalm  cxix.  130.  And 
that,  you  will  say,  is  no  such  easy  matter  to  do. 

It  is  able  to  "  make  the  man  of  God  perfect,"  says  St.  Paul, 
2  Tim.  iii.  17.  "  It  is  quick  and  powerful,  and  sharper  than  any 
two-edged  sword,  piercing  even  to  the  dividing  asunder  of  the  soul 
and  spirit ;  and  is  a  discerner  of'  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the 
heart,"  Heb.  iv.  12.  Now  what  a  force  and  fulness,  what  a  vigour 
and  emphasis  is  there  in  all  these  expressions  !  Enough,  one  would 
think,  to  recommend  and  endear  the  scriptures  even  to  the  papists 
themselves.  For  if,  as  the  text  says,  "  they  give  understanding  to 
the  simple,"  I  know  none  more  concerned  to  read  and  study  them 
than  their  popes. 

Wherefore  since  the  light  and  energy  of  the  written  word  is  so 
mighty,  let  a  man  bring  and  hold  his  conscience  to  this  steady  rule  : 
the  unalterable  rectitude  of  which  will  infallibly  discover  the  recti- 
tude or  obliquity  of  whatsoever  it  is  applied  to.  We  shall 
find  it  a  rule  both  to  instruct  us  what  to  do,  and  to  assure 
ns  in  what  we  have  done.  For  though  natural  conscience  ought 
to  be  listened  to,  yet  it  is  revelation  alone  that  is  to  be  relied  upon : 
as  we  may  observe  in  the  works  of  art,  a  judicious  artist  will  indeed 
use  his  eye,  but  he  will  trust  only  to  his  rule. 

There  is  not  any  one  action  whatsoever  which  a  man  ought  to  do 
or  to  forbear,  but  the  scripture  will  give  him  a  clear  precept  or  pro- 
hibition for  it. 

So  that  if  a  man  will  commit  such  rules  to  his  memory,  and 
stock  his  mind  with  portions  of  scripture  answerable  to  all  the 
heads  of  duty  and  practice,  his  conscience  can  never  be  at  a 
loss,  either  for  a  direction  of  his  actions,  or  an  answer  to  a  tempta- 
tion :  it  was  the  very  course  which  our  Saviour  himself  took 
when  the  devil  plied  him  with  temptation  upon  temptation :  still 
be  had  a  suitable  scripture  ready  to  repel  and  baffle  them  all,  one 

Vol.  I.— 48  2  i  2 


378 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


tsERM.  XXIII. 


after  another ;  every  pertinent  text  urged  home  being  a  direct  stab 
to  a  temptation. 

Let  a  man  therefore  consider,  and  recount  with  himself  the 
several  duties  and  virtues  of  a  Christian ;  such  as  temperance, 
meekness,  charity,  purity  of  heart,  pardoning  of  enemies,  patience 
(I  had  almost  said  passive  obedience  too,  but  that  such  old- 
fashioned  Christianity  seems  as  much  out  of  date  with  some,  as 
Christ's  divinity  and  satisfaction) ;  I  say,  let  a  man  consider  these 
and  the  like  virtues,  together  with  the  contrary  sins  and  vices 
that  do  oppose  them ;  and  then  as  out  of  a  full  armory  or  maga- 
zine, let  him  furnish  his  conscience  with  texts  of  scripture,  par- 
ticularly enjoining  the  one,  and  forbidding  or  threatening  the 
other.  And  yet  I  do  not  say  that  he  should  stuff  his  mind  like 
the  margent  of  some  authors,  with  chapter  and  verse  heaped 
together  at  all  adventures :  but  only  that  he  should  fortify  it 
with  some  few  texts,  which  are  home  and  apposite  to  his  case. 
And  a  conscience  thus  supplied  will  be  like  a  man  armed  at  all 
points,  and  always  ready  either  to  receive  or  to  attack  his  enemy. 
Otherwise  it  is  not  a  man's  having  arms  in  his  house,  no,  nor  yet 
his  having  courage  and  skill  to  use  them,  but  it  is  his  having  them 
still  about  him,  which  must  both  secure  him  from  being  set  upon, 
and  defend  him  when  he  is. 

Accordingly,  men  must  know,  that  without  taking  the  foremen- 
tioned  course,  all  that  they  do  in  this  matter  is  but  lost  labour ;  and 
that  they  read  the  scriptures  to  as  little  purpose,  as  some  use  to 
quote  them  ;  much  reading  being  like  much  eating,  wholly  useless 
without  digestion  ;  and  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  digest  his  meat, 
without  also  retaining  it. 

Till  men  get  what  they  read  into  their  minds,  and  fix  it  in 
their  memories,  they  keep  their  religion  as  they  use  to  do  their 
bibles,  only  in  their  closet,  or  carry  it  in  their  pocket ;  and  that, 
you  may  imagine,  must  improve  and  affect  the  soul,  just  as  much 
as  '  a  man's  having  plenty  of  provision  only  in  his  stores  will 
nourish  and  support,  his  body.  When  men  forget  the  word  heard 
or  read  by  them,  the  devil  is  said  to  steal  it  out  of  their  hearts, 
Luke  viii.  12.  And  for  this  cause,  we  do  with  as  much  reason, 
as  propriety  of  speech,  call  the  committing  of  a  thing  to  memory, 
the  getting  it  by  heart.  For  it  is  the  memory  that  must  transmit  it 
to  the  heart ;  and  it  is  in  vain  to  expect  that  the  heart  should  keep 
its  hold  of  any  truth,  when  the  memory  has  let  it  go. 

4.  The  fourth  and  last  way  that  I  shall  mention,  for  the 
getting  of  the  conscience  rightly  informed,  and  afterwards  keep- 
ing it  so,  is  frequently  and  impartially  to  account  with  it.  It  is 
with  a  man  and  his  conscience,  as  with  one  man  and  another ; 
amongst  whom  we  used  to  say,  that  '  even  reckoning  makes  lasting 
friends  ;'  and  the  way  to  make  reckonings  even,  I  am  sure,  is  to 
make  them  often.  Delays  in  accounts  are  always  suspicious ; 
and  bad  enough  in  themselves,  but  commonly  much  worse  in 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


379 


their  cause.  For  to  defer  an  account,  is  the  ready  way  to  perplex 
it ;  and  when  it  comes  to  be  perplexed  and  intricate,  no  man, 
either  as  to  his  temporal  or  spiritual  estate,  can  know  of  himself 
what  he  is,  or  what  he  has,  or  upon  what  bottom  he  stands.  But 
the  amazing  difficulty  and  greatness  of  his  account  will  rather  terrify 
than  inform  him ;  and  keep  him  from  setting  heartily  about  such  a 
task,  as  he  despairs  ever  to  go  through  with.  For  no  man  will- 
ingly begins  what  he  has  no  hope  to  finish. 

But  let  a  man  apply  to  this  work  by  frequent  returns  and 
short  intervals,  while  the  heap  is  small  and  the  particulars  few, 
and  he  will  find  it  easy  and  conquerable  ;  and  his  conscience, 
like  a  faithful  steward,  shall  give  him  in  a  plain,  open,  and 
entire  account  of  himself,  and  hide  nothing  from  him.  Whereas 
we  know,  if  a  steward  or  cashier  be  suffered  to  run  on  from  year 
to  year  without  bringing  him  to  a  reckoning,  it  is  odds  but  such 
a  sottish  forbearance  will,  in  time,  teach  him  to  shuffle  ;  and 
strongly  tempt  him  to  be  a  cheat,  if  not  also  to  make  him  so  : 
for  as  the  account  runs  on,  generally  the  accountant  goes  back- 
ward. 

And  for  this  cause  some  judge  it  advisable  for  a  man  to  ac- 
count with  his  heart  every  day ;  and  this  no  doubt  is  the  best 
and  surest  course :  for  still  the  oftener  the  better.  And  some 
prescribe  accounting  once  a  week :  longer  than  which  it  is  by  no 
means  safe  to  delay  it ;  for  a  man  shall  find  his  heart  deceitful, 
and  his  memory  weak,  and  nature  extremely  averse  from  seeking 
narrowly  after  that  which  it  is  unwilling  to  find  :  and  being 
found,  will  assuredly  disturb  it. 

So  that  upon  the  whole  matter  it  is  infinitely  absurd  to  think, 
that  conscience  can  be  kept  in  order  without  frequent  examina- 
tion. If  a  man  would  have  his  conscience  deal  clearly  with 
him,  he  must  deal  severely  with  it ;  often  scouring  and  cleansing 
it  will  make  it  bright ;  and  when  it  is  so,  he  may  see  himself  in 
it :  and  if  he  sees  any  thing  amiss,  let  this  satisfy  him,  that  no  man 
is  or  can  be  the  worse  for  knowing  the  very  worst  of  himself. 

On  the  contrary,  if  conscience  by  a  long  neglect  of,  and  disac- 
quaintance  with  itself,  comes  to  contract  an  inveterate  rust  or 
soil,  a  man  may  as  well  expect  to  see  his  face  in  a  mud-wall,  as 
that  such  a  conscience  should  give  him  a  true  report  of  his  con- 
dition ;  no,  it  leaves  him  wholly  in  the  dark  as  to  the  greatest 
concern  he  has  in  both  worlds.  He  can  neither  tell  whether  God 
be  his  friend  or  his  enemy,  or  rather,  he  has  shrewd  cause  to 
suspect  him  his  enemy,  and  cannot  possibly  know  him  to  be  his 
friend :  and  this  being  his  case,  he  must  live  in  ignorance,  and  di( 
in  ignorance ;  and  it  will  be  hard  for  a  man  to  die  in  it,  without 
dying  for  it  too. 

And  now  what  a  wretched  condition  must  that  man  needs  be 
in,  whose  heart  is  in  such  a  confusion,  such  darkness,  and  such  a 
settled  blindness,  that  it  shall  not  be  able  to  tell  him  so  much  as 


380 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS.  [sERM.  XXIII. 


one  true  word  of  himself?  Flatter  him  it  may,  I  confess,  as 
those  are  generally  good  at  flattering  who  are  good  for  nothing 
else  ;  but  in  the  mean  time  the  poor  man  is  left  under  the  fatal 
necessity  of  a  remediless  delusion  :  for  in  judging  of  a  man's 
self,  if  conscience  either  cannot  or  will  not  inform  him,  there  is 
a  certain  thing  called  self-love,  that  will  be  sure  to  deceive  him. 
And  thus  I  have  shown,  in  four  several  particulars,  what  is  to  be 
done,  both  for  the  getting  and  keeping  of  the  conscience  so  in- 
formed, as  that  it  may  be  able  to  give  us  a  rational  "  confidence 
towards  God."  As, 

1.  That  the  voice  of  reason,  in  all  the  dictates  of  natural  mo- 
rality, ought  carefully  to  be  attended  to  by  a  strict  observance  of 
what  it  commands,  but  especially  of  what  it  forbids. 

2.  That  every  pious  motion  from  the  Spirit  of  God  ought  ten- 
derly to  be  cherished,  and  by  no  means  checked  or  quenched  either 
by  resistance  or  neglect. 

3.  That  conscience  is  to  be  kept  close  to  the  rule  of  the 
written  word. 

4.  And  lastly,  that  it  is  frequently  to  be  examined,  and  severely 
accounted  with. 

And  I  doubt  not  but  a  conscience  thus  disciplined  shall  give  a 
man  such  a  faithful  account  of  himself,  as  shall  never  shame  nor 
lurch  the  confidence  which  he  shall  take  up  from  it. 

Nevertheless,  to  prevent  all  mistakes  in  so  critical  a  case  and  so 
high  a  concern,  I  shall  close  up  the  foregoing  particulars  with  this 
twofold  caution. 

First,  Let  no  man  think  that  every  doubting  or  misgiving 
about  the  safety  of  his  spiritual  estate,  overthrows  the  confidence 
hitherto  spoken  of.  For,  as  I  showed  before,  the  confidence 
mentioned  in  the  text  is  not  properly  assurance,  but  only  a  ra- 
tional, well-grounded  hope  ;  and  therefore  may  very  well  consist 
with  some  returns  of  doubting.  For,  we  know,  in  that  pious 
and  excellent  confession  and  prayer,  made  by  the  poor  man  to 
our  Saviour,  in  Mark  ix.  24,  how  in  the  very  same  breath,  in  which 
he  says,  "  Lord,  I  believe;"  he  says  also,  "Lord,  help  my  unbe- 
lief." So  that  we  see  here,  that  the  sincerity  of  our  faith  or 
confidence  will  not  secure  us  against  all  vicissitudes  of  wavering  or 
distrust ;  indeed,  no  more  than  a  strong  athletic  constitution  of  body 
will  secure  a  man  always  against  heats,  and  colds,  and  rheums,  and 
such  like  indispositions. 

And  one  great  reason  of  this  is,  because  such  a  faith  or  confi- 
dence as  we  have  been  treating  of  resides  in  the  soul  or  con- 
science as  a  habit ;  and  habits,  we  know,  are  by  no  means  either 
inconsistent  with,  or  destroyed  by  every  contrary  act.  But 
especially  in  the  case  now  before  us  where  the  truth  and  strength 
of  our  confidence  towards  God  does  not  consist  so  much  in  the 
present  act,  by  which  it  exerts  itself,  no,  nor  yet  in  the  habit 
producing  this  act ;  as  it  does  in  the  ground  or  reason  wThich  this 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE.  381 


confidence  is  built  upon  :  which  being  the  standing  sincerity  of  a 
man's  heart,  though  the  present  act  be  interrupted  (as,  no  doubt, 
through  infirmity  or  temptation  it  may  be  very  often)  ;  yet  so 
long  as  that  sincerity,  upon  which  this  confidence  was  first  found- 
ed, does  continue,  as  soon  as  the  temptation  is  removed  and  gone, 
the  forementioned  faith  or  affiance  w^ill,  by  renewed,  vigorous, 
and  fresh  acts,  recover  and  exert  itself,  and  with  great  comfort 
and  satisfaction  of  mind,  give  a  man  confidence  towards  God. 
Which,  though  it  be  indeed  a  lower  and  a  lesser  thing  than  as- 
surance, yet,  as  to  all  the  purposes  of  a  pious  life,  may,  for  ought 
I  see,  prove  much  more  useful ;  as  both  affording  a  man  due 
comfort,  and  yet  leaving  room  for  due  caution  too  ;  which  are  two 
of  the  principal  uses  that  religion  serves  for  in  this  world. 

2.  The  other  caution,  with  reference  to  the  foregoing  discourse, 
is  this :  let  no  man,  from  wrhat  has  been  said,  reckon  a  bare 
silence  of  conscience,  in  not  accusing  or  disturbing  him,  a  suffi- 
cient argument  for  confidence  towards  God.  For  such  a  silence 
is  so  far  from  being  always  so,  that  it  is  usually  worse  than  the 
fiercest  and  loudest  accusations ;  since  it  may,  and  for  the  most 
part  does,  proceed  from  a  kind  of  numbness  or  stupidity  of  con- 
science ;  and  an  absolute  dominion  obtained  by  sin  over  the  soul ; 
so  that  it  shall  not  so  much  as  dare  to  complain  or  make  a  stir. 
For,  as  our  Saviour  says,  Luke  xi.  21,  "  while  the  strong  man 
armed  keeps  his  palace,  his  goods  are  in  peace:"  so,  while  sin 
rules  and  governs  with  a  strong  hand,  and  has  wholly  subdued 
the  conscience  to  a  slavish  subjection  to  its  tyrannical  yoke,  the 
soul  shall  be  at  peace,  such  a  false  peace  as  it  is ;  but  for  that 
very  cause  worse  a  great  deal,  and  more  destructive,  than  when 
by  continued  alarms  and  assaults  it  gives  a  man  neither  peace 
nor  truce,  quiet  nor  intermission.  And  therefore  it  is  very  re- 
markable, that  the  text  expresses  the  sound  estate  of  the  heart 
or  the  conscience,  here  spoken  of,  not  barely  by  its  not  accusing, 
but  by  its  not  condemning  us ;  which  word  imports  properly  an 
acquitment,  or  discharge  of  a  man  upon  some  precedent  accusa- 
tion, and  a  full  trial  and  cognizance  of  his  cause  had  thereupon. 
For  as  condemnation  being  a  law  term,  and  so  relating  to  the 
judicial  proceedings  of  law  courts,  must  still  presuppose  a  hear- 
ing of  the  cause,  before  any  sentence  can  pass  ;  so  likewise  in 
the  court  of  conscience,  there  must  be  a  strict  and  impartial 
inquiry  into  all  a  man's  actions,  and  a  thorough  hearing  of  all 
that  can  be  pleaded  for  and  against  him,  before  conscience  can 
rationally  either  condemn  or  discharge  him :  and  if,  indeed,  upon 
such  a  fair  and  full  trial  he  can  come  off,  he  is  then  rectus  in 
curia,  clear  and  innocent,  and  consequently  may  reap  all  that 
satisfaction  from  himself,  which  it  is  natural  for  innocence  to 
afford  the  person  who  has  it.  I  do  not  here  speak  of  a  legal 
innocence  (none  but  sots  and  Quakers  dream  of  such  things) ; 
for,  as  St.  Paul  says,  Gal.  ii.  16,  "  By  the  works  of  the  law  shall 


382 


DR.   SOUTIl's  SERMONS. 


[sERM.  XXIII. 


no  flesh  living  be  justified :"  but  I  speak  of  an  evangelical  inno- 
cence ;  such  a  one  as  the  economy  of  the  gospel  accepts,  whatso- 
ever the  law  enjoins  ;  and  though  mingled  with  several  infirmities 
and  defects,  yet  amounts  to  such  a  pitch  of  righteousness,  as  we 
call  sincerity.  And  whosoever  has  this,  shall  never  be  damned 
for  want  of  the  other. 

And  now,  how  vastly  does  it  concern  all  those,  who  shall  think 
it  worth  their  while  to  be  in  earnest  with  their  immortal  souls, 
not  to  abuse  and  delude  themselves  with  a  false  confidence !  A 
thing  so  easily  taken  up,  and  so  hardly  laid  down.  Let  no  man 
conclude,  because  his  conscience  says  nothing  to  him,  that  there- 
fore it  has  nothing  to  say.  Possibly  some  never  so  much  as 
doubted  of  the  safety  of  their  spiritual  estate  in  all  their  lives; 
and  if  so  let  them  not  flatter  themselves,  but  rest  assured  that 
they  have  so  much  the  more  reason  a  great  deal  to  doubt  of  it 
now  ;  for  the  causes  of  such  a  profound  stillness  are  generally 
gross  ignorance,  or  long  custom  of  sinning,  or  both  ;  and  these 
are  very  dreadful  symptoms  indeed,  to  such  as  are  not  hell  and 
damnation-proof.  When  a  man's  wounds  cease  to  smart,  only 
because  he  has  lost  his  feeling,  they  are  never  the  less  mortal  for 
his  not  seeing  his  need  of  a  chirurgeon.  It  is  not  mere,  actual, 
present  ease,  but  ease  after  pain,  which  brings  the  most  durable 
and  solid  comfort.  Acquitment  before  trial  can  be  no  security. 
Great  and  strong  calms  usually  portend  and  go  before  the  most 
violent  storms.  And  therefore,  since  storms  and  calms,  especially 
with  reference  to  the  state  of  the  soul,  do  always  follow  one 
another ;  certainly,  of  the  two,  it  is  much  more  eligible  to  have 
the  storm  first  and  the  calm  afterwards ;  since  a  calm  before  a 
storm  is  commonly  a  peace  of  a  man's  own  making ;  but  a  calm 
after  a  storm  a  peace  of  God's. 

To  which  God,  who  only  can  speak  such  peace  to  us,  as  neither 
the  world  nor  the  devil  shall  be  able  to  take  from  us,  be  rendered 
and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  do- 
minion, both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


383 


SERMON  XXIV. 

A  FURTHER  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF 
CONSCIENCE. 

[Preached  before  the  University  at  Christ  Church,  Oxon,  October  30,  1692.] 

1  John  hi.  21. 

Beloved,  if  our  heart  condemn  us  not,  then  have  we  confidence 
towards  God. 

I  have  discoursed  once  already  upon  these  words  in  this 
place.  In  which  discourse,  after  I  had  set  down  four  several 
false  grounds,  upon  which  men,  in  judging  of  the  safety  of  their 
spiritual  estate,  were  apt  to  found  a  wrong  confidence  towards 
God,  and  shown  the  falsity  of  them  all :  and  that  there  was 
nothing  but  a  man's  own  heart  or  conscience,  which,  in  this  great 
concern,  he  could  with  any  safety  rely  upon ;  I  did  in  the  next 
place  cast  the  further  prosecution  of  the  words  under  these  four  fol- 
lowing particulars. 

I.  To  show  how  the  heart  or  conscience  ought  to  be  informed,  in 
order  to  its  founding  in  us  a  rational  confidence  towards  God. 

II.  To  show  how  and  by  what  means  we  may  get  our  conscience 
thus  informed,  and  afterwards  preserve  and  keep  it  so. 

III.  To  show  whence  it  is,  that  the  testimony  of  conscience,  thus 
informed,  comes  to  be  so  authentic,  and  so  much  to  be  relied  upon. 
And, 

IV.  And  lastly,  to  assign  some  particular  cases  or  instances,  in 
which  the  confidence  suggested  by  it  does  most  eminently  show 
and  exert  itself. 

Upon  the  first  of  which  heads,  to  wit,  how  the  heart  or  conscience 
ought  to  be  informed,  in  order  to  its  founding  in  us  a  rational 
confidence  towards  God,  after  I  had  premised  something  about  an 
erroneous  conscience,  and  shown  both  what  influence  that  ought  to 
have  upon  us,  and  what  regard  we  ought  to  have  to  that  in  this 
matter,  I  gathered  the  result  of  all  into  this  one  conclusion ; 
namely,  That  such  a  conscience  as  has  not  been  wanting  to  itself, 
in  endeavouring  the  utmost  knowledge  of  its  duty,  and  the 
clearest  information  about  the  will  of  God,  that  its  power, 
advantages,  and  opportunities  could  afford  it,  is  that  great  inter- 
nal judge,  whose  absolution  is  a  rational  and  sure  ground  of  con- 
fidence towards  God.  This  I  then  insisted  upon  at  large,  and 
from  thence  proceed  to  the 


384  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  XXIV. 

II.  Particular :  which  was  to  show,  how  and  by  what  means  we 
might  get  our  conscience  thus  informed,  and  afterwards  preserve  and 
keep  it  so. 

Where  amongst  those  many  ways  and  methods,  which  might  no 
doubt  have  been  assigned,  as  highly  conducing  to  his  purpose,  I 
singled  out  and  insisted  upon  only  these  four.  As, 

1.  That  the  voice  of  reason,  in  all  the  dictates  of  natural  morality, 
was  still  carefully  to  be  attended  to  by  a  strict  observance  of  what 
it  commanded,  but  especially  of  what  it  forbad. 

2.  That  every  pious  motion  from  the  Spirit  of  God  was  tenderly 
to  be  cherished,  and  by  no  means  quenched  or  checked,  either  by 
resistance  or  neglect. 

3.  That  conscience  was  still  to  be  kept  close  to  the  rule  of  God's 
written  word ;  and 

4.  And  lastly,  that  it  was  frequently  to  be  examined,  and 
severely  accounted  with. 

These  things  also  I  then  more  fully  enlarged  upon  ;  and  so  closed 
up  all  with  a  double  caution,  and  that  of  no  small  importance  as  to 
the  case  then  before  us  :  as, 

First,  that  no  man  should  reckon  every  doubting  or  misgiving 
of  his  heart  about  the  safety  of  his  spiritual  estate,  inconsistent 
with  that  confidence  towards  God,  which  is  here  spoken  of  in 
the  text :  and  secondly,  that  no  man  should  account  a  bare 
silence  of  conscience,  in  not  accusing  or  disturbing  him,  a  suffi- 
cient ground  for  such  a  confidence  :  of  both  which  I  then  showed 
the  fatal  consequence.  And  so,  not  to  trouble  you  with  any 
more  repetitions  than  these,  which  were  just  and  necessary  to  lay 
before  you  the  coherence  of  one  thing  with  another,  I  shall  now 
proceed  to  the 

Third  of  those  four  particulars  first  proposed :  which  was  to 
show  whence  it  is  that  the  testimony  of  conscience  ( concerning  a 
man's  spiritual  estate  J  comes  to  be  so  authentic,  and  so  much  to  be 
relied  upon. 

Now  the  force  and  credit  of  its  testimony  stands  upon  this 
double  ground. 

1.  The  high  office  which  it  holds  immediately  from  God  himself, 
in  the  soul  of  man.  And, 

2.  Those  properties  or  qualities  which  peculiarly  fit  it  for  the  dis- 
charge of  this  high  office,  in  all  things  relating  to  the  soul. 

I.  And  first,  for  its  office.  It  is  no  less  than  God's  vicegerent  or 
deputy,  doing  all  things  by  immediate  commission  from  him. 
It  commands  and  dictates  every  thing  in  God's  name ;  and 
stamps  every  word  with  an  almighty  authority.  So  that  it  is,  as 
it  were,  a  kind  of  copy  or  transcript  of  the  divine  sentence,  and 
an  interpreter  of  the  sense  of  heaven.  And  from  hence  it  is, 
that  sins  against  conscience  (as  all  sins  against  light  and  convic- 
tion are,  by  way  of  eminence,  so  called)  are  of  so  peculiar  and 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


385 


transcendent  a  guilt.  For  that  every  such  sin  is  a  daring  and 
direct  defiance  of  the  divine  authority,  as  it  is  signified  and  re- 
ported to  a  man  by  his  conscience,  and  thereby  ultimately  termi- 
nates in  God  himself. 

Nay,  and  this  vicegerent  of  God  has  one  prerogative  above  all 
God's  other  earthly  vicegerents ;  to  wit,  that  it  can  never  be 
deposed.  Such  a  strange,  sacred,  and  inviolable  majesty  has 
God  imprinted  upon  this  faculty:  not,  indeed,  as  upon  an  abso- 
lute, independent  sovereign ;  but  yet  with  so  great  a  communi- 
cation of  something  next  to  sovereignty,  that  while  it  keeps 
within  its  proper  compass,  it  is  controllable  by  no  mortal  power 
upon  earth.  For  not  the  greatest  monarch  in  the  world  can 
countermand  conscience  so  far,  as  to  make  it  condemn  where  it 
would  otherwise  acquit;  or  acquit  where  it  would  otherwise  con- 
demn ;  no,  neither  sword  or  sceptre  can  come  at  it ;  but  it  is  above 
and  beyond  the  reach  of  both. 

And  if  it  were  not  for  this  awful  and  majestic  character  which 
it  bears,  whence  could  it  be  that  the  stoutest  and  bravest  hearts 
droop  and  sneak  when  conscience  frowns ;  and  the  most  abject 
and  afflicted  wretch  feels  an  unspeakable  and  even  triumphant  joy, 
when  the  judge  within  absolves  and  applauds  him  ?  When  a  man 
has  done  any  villanous  act,  though  under  countenance  of  the 
highest  place  and  power,  and  under  covert  of  the  closest  secresy, 
his  conscience  for  all  that  strikes  him  like  a  clap  of  thunder,  and 
depresses  him  to  a  perpetual  trepidation,  horror,  and  poorness  of 
spirit ;  so  that  like  Nero,  though  surrounded  with  his  Roman 
legions  and  Praetorian  bands,  he  yet  skulks  and  hides  himself,  and 
is  ready  to  fly  to  every  thing  for  refuge,  though  he  sees  nothing 
to  fly  from.  And  all  this,  because  he  has  heard  a  condemning 
sentence  from  within,  which  the  secret  forebodings  of  his  mind 
tell  him  will  be  ratified  by  a  sad  and  certain  execution  from  above. 
On  the  other  side,  what  makes  a  man  so  cheerful,  so  bright,  and 
confident  in  his  comforts,  but  because  he  finds  himself  acquitted  by 
God's  high  commissioner  and  deputy?  Which  is  as  much  as  a 
pardon  under  God's  own  hand,  under  the  broad  seal  of  heaven,  as 
I  may  so  express  it.  For  a  king  never  condemns  any  whom  his 
judges  have  absolved,  nor  absolves  whom  his  judges  have  con- 
demned, whatsoever  the  people  and  republicans  may. 

Now  from  this  principle,  that  the  authority  of  conscience 
stands  founded  upon  its  vicegerency  and  deputation  under  God, 
several  very  important  inferences  may,  or  rather  indeed  unavoid- 
ably must  ensue.  Two  of  which  I  shall  single  out  and  speak 
of :  as, 

First,  We  collect  from  hence  the  absurdity  and  impertinence  ; 
and, 

Secondly,  The  impudence  and  impiety  of  most  of  those  pretences 
of  conscience,  which  have  borne  such  a  mighty  sway  all  the  world 
over;  and  in  these  poor  nations  especially. 

Vol.  I.— 49  2  K 


386 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIV. 


1.  And  first,  for  the  absurdity  and  impertinence  of  them.  What 
a  rattle  and  noise  has  this  word  conscience  made !  How  many 
battles  has  it  fought!  How  many  churches  has  it  robbed,  ruined, 
and  reformed  to  ashes  !  How  many  laws  has  it  trampled  upon,  and 
dispensed  with,  and  addressed  against!  And,  in  a  word,  how 
many  governments  has  it  overturned !  Such  is  the  mischievous 
force  of  a  plausible  word,  applied  to  a  detestable  thing. 

The  allegation  or  plea  of  conscience  ought  never  to  be  admitted 
barely  for  itself;  for  when  a  thing  obliges  only  by  a  borrowed 
authority,  it  is  ridiculous  to  allege  it  for  its  own.  Take  a  lieu- 
tenant, a  commissioner,  or  ambassador  of  any  prince ;  and  so  far 
as  he  represents  his  prince,  all  that  he  does  or  declares  under  that 
capacity,  has  the  same  force  and  validity  as  if  actually  done  or 
declared  by  the  prince  himself  in  person :  but  then  how  far  does 
this  reach  ?  Why  just  so  far  as  he  keeps  close  to  his  instructions : 
but  when  he  once  balks  them,  though  what  he  does  may  be  indeed 
a  public  crime,  or  a  national  mischief,  yet  it  is  but  a  private  act ; 
and  the  doer  of  it  may  chance  to  pay  his  head  for  the  presumption. 
For  still,  as  great  as  the  authority  of  such  kind  of  persons  is,  it  is 
not  founded  upon  their  own  will,  nor  upon  their  own  judgment,  but 
upon  their  commission. 

In  like  manner,  every  dictate  of  this  vicegerent  of  God,  where  it 
has  a  divine  word  or  precept  to  back  it,  carries  a  divine  authority 
with  it.  But  if  no  such  word  can  be  produced,  it  may  indeed  be 
a  strong  opinion  or  persuasion,  but  it  is  not  conscience :  and  no  one 
thing  in  the  world  has  done  more  mischief,  and  caused  more  de- 
lusions amongst  men,  than  their  not  distinguishing  between  con- 
science, and  mere  opinion  or  persuasion. 

Conscience  is  a  Latin  word  (though  with  an  English  termina- 
tion), and  according  to  the  very  notation  of  it  imports  a  double 
or  joint  knowledge  ;  to  wit,  one  of  a  divine  law  or  rule,  and  the 
other  of  a  man's  own  action :  and  so  is  properly  the  application 
of  a  general  law  to  a  particular  instance  of  practice.  The  law 
of  God,  for  example,  says,  "  Thou  shalt  not  steal and  the 
mind  of  man  tells  him,  that  the  taking  of  such  or  such  a  thing 
from  a  person  lawfully  possessed  of  it  is  stealing.  Whereupon  the 
conscience,  joining  the  knowledge  of  both  these  together,  pro- 
nounces in  the  name  of  God,  that  such  a  particular  action  ought 
not  to  be  done.  And  this  is  the  true  procedure  of  conscience, 
always  supposing  a  law  from  God,  before  it  pretends  to  lay  any 
obligation  upon  man :  for  still  I  aver,  that  conscience  neither  is  nor 
ought  to  be  its  own  rule. 

I  question  not,  I  confess,  but  mere  opinion  or  persuasion  may 
be  every  whit  as  strong,  and  have  as  forcible  an  influence  upon  a 
man's  actions  as  conscience  itself.  But  then,  we  know,  strength 
and  force  is  one  thing,  and  authority  quite  another.  As  a  rogue 
upon  the  highway  may  have  as  strong  an  arm,  and  take  off  a 
man's  head  as  cleverly,  as  the  executioner.    But  then  there  is  a 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


387 


vast  disparity  in  the  two  actions,  when  one  of  them  is  murder, 
and  the  other  justice :  nay,  and  our  Saviour  himself  told  his 
disciples,  that  men  should  both  kill  them,  and  think  that  in  so 
doing  they  did  God  service.  So  that  here,  we  see,  was  a  full 
opinion  and  persuasion,  and  a  very  zealous  one  too,  of  the  high 
meritoriousness  of  what  they  did ;  but  still  there  was  no  law,  no 
word  or  command  of  God  to  ground  it  upon,  and  consequently  it 
was  not  conscience. 

Now. the  notion  of  conscience  thus  stated,  if  firmly  kept  to 
and  thoroughly  driven  home,  would  effectually  baffle  and  con- 
found all  those  senseless,  though  clamorous  pretences  of  the 
schismatical  opposers  of  the  constitutions  of  our  church.  In 
defence  of  which,  I  shall  not  speak  so  much  as  one  syllable 
against  the  indulgence  and  toleration  granted  to  these  men.  No, 
since  they  have  it,  let  them,  in  God's  name,  enjoy  it,  and  the 
government  make  the  best  of  it.  But  since  I  cannot  find  that 
the  law  which  tolerates  them  in  their  way  of  worship,  and  it  does 
no  more,  does  at  all  forbid  us  to  defend  ours,  it  were  earnestly  to 
be  wished,  that  all  hearty  lovers  of  the  church  of  England  would 
assert  its  excellent  constitution  more  vigorously  now  than  ever: 
and  especially  in  such  congregations  as  this ;  in  which  there  are 
so  many  young  persons,  upon  the  well  or  ill  principling  of  whom 
(next  under  God)  depends  the  happiness  or  misery  of  this  church 
and  state.  For  if  such  should  be  generally  prevailed  upon  by 
hopes  or  fears,  by  base  examples,  by  trimming  and  time-serving 
(which  are  but  two  words  for  the  same  thing),  to  abandon  and 
betray  the  church  of  England,  by  nauseating  her  pious,  prudent, 
and  wholesome  orders  (of  which  I  have  seen  some  scurvy  in- 
stances), we  may  rest  assured,  that  this  will  certainly  produce  con- 
fusion, and  that  confusion  will  as  certainly  end  in  popery. 

And  therefore,  since  the  liturgy,  rites,  and  ceremonies  of  our 
church  have  been,  and  still  are  so  much  cavilled  and  struck  at, 
and  all  upon  a  plea  of  conscience  ;  it  will  concern  us,  as  becomes 
men  of  sense,  seriously  to  examine  the  force  of  this  plea ;  which 
our  adversaries  are  still  setting  up  against  us  as  the  grand  pillar 
and  buttress  of  the  good  old  cause  of  nonconformity.  For  come 
to  any  dissenting  brother,  and  ask  him,  Why  cannot  you  com- 
municate with  the  church  of  England?  "Oh,"  says  he,  "it 
is  against  my  conscience  ;  my  conscience  will  not  suffer  me  to 
pray  by  a  set  form,  to  kneel  at  the  sacrament,  to  hear  divine 
service  red  by  one  in  a  surplice  ;  or  to  use  the  cross  in  baptism  ;" 
or  the  like. 

Very  well ;  and  is  this  the  case  then,  that  it  is  all  pure  con- 
science that  keeps  you  from  complying  with  the  rule  and  order 
of  the  church  in  these  matters?  If  so,  then  produce  me  some 
word  or  law  of  God  forbidding  these  things.  For  conscience 
never  commands  or  forbids  any  thing  authentically,  but  there 
is  some  law  of  God  which  commands  or  forbids  it  first.  Con- 


388 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIV. 


science,  as  might  be  easily  shown,  being  no  distinct  power  or 
faculty  from  the  mind  of  man,  but  the  mind  of  man  itself 
applying  the  general  rule  of  God's  law  to  particular  cases  and 
actions.  This  is  truly  and  properly  conscience.  And  therefore 
show  me  such  a  law ;  and  that  either  as  a  necessary  dictate  of 
right  reason,  or  a  positive  injunction  in  God's  revealed  word  ; 
for  these  two  are  all  the  ways  by  which  God  speaks  to  men 
now-a-days ;  I  say,  show  me  something  from  hence  which  coun- 
termands or  condpmns  all  or  any  of  the  forementioned  ceremonies 
of  our  church,  and  then  I  will  yield  the  cause.  But  if  no  such 
reason,  no  such  scripture  can  be  brought  to  appear  in  their  behalf 
against  us,  but  that  with  screwed  face  and  doleful  whine  they  only 
ply  you  with  senseless  harangues  of  conscience  against  carnal  ordi- 
nances, the  dead  letter,  and  human  inventions  on  the  one  hand, 
and  loud  outcries  for  a  further  reformation  on  the  other ;  then  rest 
you  assured  that  they  have  a  design  upon  your  pocket,  and  that 
the  word  conscience  is  used  only  as  an  instrument  to  pick  it ;  and 
more  particularly,  as  it  calls  it  a  further  reformation,  signifies  no 
more,  with  reference  to  the  church,  than  as  if  one  man  should 
come  to  another,  and  say,  "  Sir,  I  have  already  taken  away  your 
cloak,  and  do  fully  intend  (if  I  can)  to  take  away  your  coat 
also."  This  is  the  true  meaning  of  this  word  further  reformation  ; 
and  so  long  as  you  understand  it  in  this  sense,  you  cannot  be  im- 
posed upon  by  it. 

Well,  but  if  these  mighty  men  at  chapter  and  verse  can  pro- 
duce you  no  scripture  to  overthrow  our  church  ceremonies,  I  will 
undertake  to  produce  scripture  enough  to  warrant  them ;  even 
all  those  places  which  absolutely  enjoin  obedience  and  submission 
to  lawful  governors  in  all  not  unlawful  things  ;  particularly  that 
in  1  Pet.  ii.  13,  and  that  in  Heb.  xiii.  17  (of  which  two  places 
more  again  presently),  together  with  the  other  in  1  Cor.  xiv.  last 
verse,  enjoining  order  and  decency  in  God's  worship,  and  in  all 
things  relating  to  it.  And  consequently,  till  these  men  can  prove 
the  forementioned  things  ordered  by  our  church,  to  be  either 
intrinsically  unlawful  or  indecent,  I  do  here  affirm,  by  the  authori- 
ty of  the  foregoing  scriptures,  that  the  use  of  them  as  they  stand 
established  amongst  us,  is  necessary ;  and  that  all  pretences  and 
pleas  of  conscience  to  the  contrary,  are  nothing  but  cant  and  cheat, 
ilam  and  delusion.  In  a  word,  the  ceremonies  of  the  ehurch  of 
England  are  as  necessary  as  the  injunctions  of  an  undoubtedly 
lawful  authority,  the  practice  of  the  primitive  church,  and  the 
general  rules  of  decency,  determined  to  particulars  of  the  greatest 
decency,  can  make  them  necessary.  And  I  will  not  for  all  the 
world  be  arraigned  at  the  last  and  great  day  for  disturbing  the 
church,  and  disobeying  government,  and  have  no  better  plea  for 
so  doing  than  what  those  of  the  separation  were  ever  yet  able  to 
defend  themselves  by. 

But  some  will  here  say  perhaps,  If  this  be  all  that  you  require 


V 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE.  389 

of  us,  we  both  can  and  do  bring  you  scripture  against  your 
church  ceremonies  ;  even  that  which  condemns  all  will  worship, 
Col.  ii.  23,  and  such  other  like  places.  To  which  I  answer,  first, 
that  the  will  worship  forbidden  in  that  scripture,  is  so  termed, 
not  from  the  circumstance,  but  from  the  object  of  religious  wor- 
ship ;  and  we  readily  own,  that  it  is  by  no  means  in  the  church's 
power  to  appoint  or  choose  whom  or  what  it  will  worship.  But 
that  does  not  infer,  that  it  is  not  therefore  in  the  church's  power 
to  appoint  how  and  in  what  manner  it  will  worship  the  true  object 
of  religious  worship  ;  provided  that  in  so  doing  it  observes  such 
rules  of  decency  as  are  proper,  and  conducing  to  that  purpose. 
So  that  this  scripture  is  wholly  irrelative  to  the  case  before  us ; 
and  as  impertinently  applied  to  it,  as  any  poor  text  in  the  Reve- 
lation was  ever  applied  to  the  grave  and  profound  whimsies  of 
some  modern  interpreters.  But,  2.  To  this  objection  about  will 
worship,  I  answer  yet  further ;  that  the  forementioned  cere- 
monies of  the  church  of  England,  are  no  worship,  nor  part  of 
God's  worship  at  all,  nor  were  ever  pretended  so  to  be ;  and  if 
they  are  not  so  much  as  worship,  I  am  sure  they  cannot  be  will 
worship.  But  we  own  them  only  for  circumstances,  modes,  and 
solemn  usages  by  which  God's  worship  is  orderly  and  decently 
performed:  I  say,  we  pretend  them  not  to  be  parts  of  divine 
worship  ;  but,  for  all  that,  to  be  such  things  as  the  divine  worship, 
in  some  instance  or  other,  cannot  be  without;  for  that  which 
neither  does  nor  can  give  vital  heat,  may  yet  be  necessary  to  pre- 
serve it :  and  he  who  should  strip  himself  of  all  that  is  no  part  of 
himself,  would  quickly  find,  or  rather  feel  the  inconvenience  of  such 
a  practice  ;  and  have  cause  to  wish  for  a  body  as  void  of  sense  as 
such  an  argument. 

Now  the  consequence  in  both  these  cases  is  perfectly  parallel ; 
and  if  so,  you  may  rest  satisfied  that  what  is  nonsense  upon  a  prin- 
ciple of  reason,  will  never  be  sense  upon  a  principle  of  religion. 
But  as  touching  the  necessity  of  the  aforesaid  usages  in  the  church 
of  England,  I  shall  lay  down  these  four  propositions. 

1.  That  circumstantials  in  the  worship  of  God,  as  well  as  in  all 
other  human  actions,  are  so  necessary  to  it,  that  it  cannot  possibly 
be  performed  without  them. 

2.  That  decency  in  the  circumstantials  of  God's  worship  is  abso- 
lutely necessary. 

3.  That  the  general  rule  and  precept  of  decency  is  not  capable 
of  being  reduced  to  practice,  but  as  it  is  exemplified  in,  and  deter- 
mined to,  particular  instances.  And, 

4.  And  lastly,  that  there  is  more  of  the  general  nature  of  decency 
in  those  particular  usages  and  ceremonies  which  the  church  of 
England  has  pitched  upon,  than  is  or  can  be  shown  in  any  other 
whatsoever. 

These  things  I  affirm ;  and  when  you  have  put  them  all 
together,  let  any  one  give  me  a  solid  and  sufficient  reason  for  the 

2k  2 


390 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIV. 


giving  up  of  those  few  ceremonies  of  our  church,  if  he  can.  All 
the  reason  that  I  could  ever  yet  hear  alleged  by  the  chief  factors 
for  a  general  intromission  of  all  sorts,  sects,  and  persuasions  into 
our  communion,  is,  that  those  who  separate  from  us  are  stiff  and 
obstinate,  and  will  not  submit  to  the  rules  and  orders  of  our 
church,  and  that  therefore  they  ought  to  be  taken  away:  which 
is  a  goodly  reason  indeed,  and  every  way  worthy  of  the  wisdom 
and  integrity  of  those  who  allege  it.  And  to  show  that  it  is  so, 
let  it  be  but  transferred  from  the  ecclesiastical  to  the  civil  govern- 
ment, from  church  to  state  ;  and  let  all  laws  be  abrogated,  which 
any  great  or  sturdy  multitude  of  men  have  no  mind  to  submit 
to  :  that  is,  in  other  words,  let  laws  be  made  to  obey,  and  not  to 
be  obeyed  ;  and,  upon  these  terms,  I  doubt  not  but  you  will  find 
that  kingdom,  or  rather  that  commonwealth,  finely  governed  in  a 
short  time. 

And  thus  I  have  shown  the  absurdity,  folly,  and  impertinence 
of  alleging  the  obligation  of  conscience,  where  there  is  no  law  or 
command  of  God,  mediate  or  immediate,  to  found  that  obligation 
upon.  And  yet,  as  bad  as  this  is,  it  were  well  if  the  bare  absur- 
dity of  these  pretences  were  the  worst  thing  which  we  had  to 
charge  them  with.  But  it  is  not  so.  For  our  second  and  next 
inference  from  the  foregoing  principle  of  the  vicegerency  of  con- 
science under  God,  will  show  us  also  the  daring  impudence  and 
downright  impiety  of  many  of  those  fulsome  pleas  of  conscience, 
which  the  world  has  been  too  often  and  too  scandalously  abused 
by.  For  a  man  to  sin  against  his  conscience  is  doubtless  a  great 
wickedness.  But  to  make  God  himself  a  party  in  the  sin  is  a 
much  greater:  for  this  is  to  plead  God's  authority  against  God's 
very  law :  which  doubles  the  sin  and  adds  blasphemy  to  rebel- 
lion. And  yet  such  things  we  have  seen  done  amongst  us.  A 
horrid,  unnatural,  civil  war  raised  and  carried  on ;  the  purest  and 
most  primitively  reformed  church  in  the  world  laid  in  the  dust ; 
and  one  of  the  best  and  most  innocent  princes  that  ever  sat  upon  a 
throne,  by  a  barbarous  unheard-of  violence,  hurried  to  his  grave  in 
a  bloody  sheet,  and  not  so  much  as  suffered  to  rest  there  to  this 
day :  and  all  this  by  men  acting  under  the  most  solemn  pretences  of 
conscience,  that  hypocrisy  perhaps  ever  yet  presumed  to  outface  the 
world  with. 

And  are  not  the  principles  of  those  wretches  still  owned,  and 
their  persons  sainted  by  a  race  of  men  of  the  same  stamp,  risen 
up  in  their  stead,  the  sworn  mortal  enemies  of  our  church  ? 
And  yet  for  whose  sake  some  projectors  amongst  us  have  been 
turning  every  stone  to  transform,  mangle,  and  degrade,  its  noble 
constitution  to  the  homely,  mechanic  model  of  those  republican, 
imperfect  churches  abroad :  which,  instead  of  being  any  rule  or 
pattern  to  us,  ought,  in  all  reason,  to  receive  one  from  us.  Nay, 
and  so  short-sighted  are  some  in  their  politics,  as  not  to  discern 
all  this  while,  that  it  is  not  the  service,  but  the  revenue  of  our 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


391 


church  which  is  struck  at ;  and  not  any  passages  of  our  liturgy, 
but  the  property  of  our  lands,  which  these  reformers  would  have 
altered. 

For  I  am  sure  no  other  alteration  will  satisfy  dissenting  con- 
sciences ;  no,  nor  this  neither,  very  long,  without  an  utter  abo- 
lition of  all  that  looks  like  order  or  government  in  the  church. 
And  this  we  may  be  sure  of,  if  we  do  but  consider  both  the 
inveterate  malice  of  the  Romish  party,  which  sets  these  silly, 
unthinking  tools  a-work,  and  withal  that  monstrous  principle  or 
maxim,  which  those  who  divide  from  us  (at  least  most  of  them) 
roundly  profess,  avow,  and  govern  their  consciences  by.  Namely, 
That  in  all  matters  that  concern  religion  or  the  church,  though  a 
thing  or  action  be  never  so  indifferent  or  lawful  in  itself ;  yet  if 
it  be  commanded  or  enjoined  by  the  government,  either  civil  or 
ecclesiastical,  it  becomes  ipso  facto,  by  being  so  commanded,  utterly 
unlawful,  and  such  as  they  can  by  no  means  with  good  conscience 
comply  with. 

Which  one  detestable  tenet  or  proposition,  carrying  in  it  the  very 
quintessence  and  vital  spirit  of  all  nonconformity,  absolutely 
cashiers  and  cuts  off  all  church  government  at  one  stroke  ;  and  is 
withal  such  an  insolent,  audacious  defiance  of  almighty  God,  under 
the  mask  of  conscience,  as  perhaps  none  in  former  ages,  who  so 
much  as  wore  the  name  of  Christians,  ever  arrived  to  or  made  pro- 
fession of. 

For  to  resume  the  scriptures  afore  quoted  by  us,  and  particu- 
larly that  in  1  Pet.  ii.  13,  "  Submit  yourselves  to  every  or- 
dinance of  man,"  says  the  Spirit  of  God,  speaking  by  that  apostle. 
But,  say  these  men,  if  the  ordinance  of  man  enjoins  you  the 
practice  of  any  thing  with  reference  to  religion  or  the  church, 
though  never  so  lawful  in  itself,  you  cannot,  with  a  good  con- 
science, submit  to  the  ordinance  of  man  in  that  case  :  that  is,  in 
other  words,  God  says,  they  must  submit ;  and  they  say,  they 
must  not. 

Again,  in  the  forementioned  Heb.  xiii.  17,  the  apostle  bids 
them  (and  in  them,  all  Christians  whatsoever)  to  "  obey  those 
who  have  the  rule  over  them  speaking  there  of  church  rulers  ; 
for  he  tells  them,  that  they  were  "  such  as  watched  for  their 
souls."  But,  says  the  separatist,  if  those  who  have  the  rule  over 
you,  should  command  you  any  thing  about  church  affairs,  you 
cannot,  you  ought  not,  in  conscience  to  obey  them  ;  forasmuch 
as  according  to  that  grand  principle  of  theirs,  newly  specified  by 
us,  every  such  command  makes  obedience  to  a  thing  otherwise 
lawful  to  become  unlawful ;  and,  consequently,  upon  the  same 
principle,  rulers  must  not,  cannot  be  obeyed  :  unless  wTe  could 
imagine  that  there  may  be  such  a  thing  as  obedience  on  the  one 
side,  where  there  must  be  no  such  thing  as  a  command  on  the 
other ;  which  would  make  pleasant  sense  of  it  indeed,  and  fit  for 
none  but  a  dissenting  reason,  as  well  as  conscience,  to  assert. 


392 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIV. 


For,  though  these  men  have  given  the  world  too  many  terrible 
proofs  of  their  own  example,  that  there  may  be  commands,  and 
no  obedience ;  yet  I  believe  it  will  put  their  little  logic  hard  to 
it,  to  prove  that  there  can  be  any  obedience  where  there  is 
no  command.  And  therefore  it  unanswerably  follows,  that 
the  abettors  of  the  forementioned  principles  plead  conscience 
in  a  direct  and  barefaced  contradiction  to  God's  express 
command. 

And  now,  I  beseech  you,  consider  with  yourselves,  for  it  is  no 
slight  matter  that  I  am  treating  of ;  I  say,  consider  what  you 
ought  to  judge  of  those  insolent,  unaccountable  boasts  of  con- 
science, which,  like  so  many  fire-balls  or  mouth-grenadoes,  as  I 
may  so  term  them,  are  every  day  thrown  at  our  church.  The 
apostle  bids  us  "prove  all  things."  And  will  you  then  take  con- 
science at  every  turn  upon  its  own  word?  upon  the  forlorn 
credit  of  every  bold  impostor  who  pleads  it  ?  Will  you  sell  your 
reason,  your  church,  and  your  religion,  and  both  of  them  the  best 
in  the  world,  for  a  name?  and  that  a  wretched,  abused,  mis- 
applied name?  Knaves,  when  they  design  some  more  than 
ordinary  villany,  never  fail  to  make  use  of  this  plea;  and  it  is 
because  they  always  find  fools  ready  to  believe  it. 

But  you  will  say  then,  what  course  must  be  taken  to  fence 
against  this  imposture  ?  Why  truly,  the  best  that  I  know  of  I 
have  told  you  before  ;  namely,  that  whensoever  you  hear  any  of 
these  sly,  sanctified  sycophants,  with  turned-up  eye,  and  shrug 
of  shoulder,  pleading  conscience  for  or  against  any  thing  or 
practice,  you  would  forthwith  ask  them  what  word  of  God  they 
have  to  bottom  that  judgment  of  their  conscience  upon  ?  Foras- 
much as  conscience,  being  God's  vicegerent,  was  never  commis- 
sioned by  him  to  govern  us  in  its  own  name  ;  but  must  still  have 
some  divine  word  or  law  to  support  and  warrant  it.  And  there- 
fore call  for  such  a  word ;  and  that  either  from  scripture  or  from 
manifest  universal  reason  ;  and  insist  upon  it,  so  as  not  to  be  put 
off  without  it.  And  if  they  can  produce  you  no  such  thing  from 
either  of  them  (as  they  never  can),  then  rest  assured  that  they 
are  arrant  cheats  and  hypocrites,  and  that  for  all  their  big  words, 
the  conscience  of  such  men  is  so  far  from  being  able  to  give  them 
any  true  confidence  towards  God,  that  it  cannot  so  much  as  give 
them  confidence  towards  a  wise  and  good  man,  no,  nor  yet  towards 
themselves,  who  are  far  from  being  either. 

And  thus  I  have  shown  you  the  first  ground  upon  which  the 
testimony  of  conscience  (concerning  a  man's  spiritual  estate) 
comes  to  be  so  authentic,  and  so  much  to  be  relied  upon ;  to  wit, 
the  high  office  which  it  holds  as  the  vicegerent  of  God  himself  in 
the  soul  of  man :  together  with  the  two  grand  inferences  drawn 
from  thence.  The  first  of  them  showing  the  absurdity,  folly,  and 
impertinence  of  pretending  conscience  against  any  thing,  when 
there  is  no  law  of  God  mediate  or  immediate  against  it :  and  the 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


393 


other  setting  forth  the  intolerable  blasphemy  and  impiety  of  pretend- 
ing conscience  for  any  thing,  which  the  known  law  of  God  is 
directly  against,  and  stands  in  open  defiance  of. 

Proceed  we  now  to  the  second  ground,  from  which  conscience 
derives  the  credit  of  its  testimony  in  judging  of  our  spiritual  estate; 
and  that  consists  in  those  properties  and  qualities  which  so  pecu- 
liarly fit  it  for  the  discharge  of  its  forementioned  office,  in  all  things 
relating  to  the  soul.    And  these  are  three. 

First,  The  quickness  of  its  sight. 

Secondly,  The  tenderness  of  its  sense:  and, 

Thirdly  and  lastly,  Its  rigorous  and  impartial  way  of  giving 
sentence. 

Of  each  of  which  in  their  order.  And  first,  for  the  extra- 
ordinary quickness  and  sagacity  of  its  sight,  in  spying  out  every 
thing  which  any  way  concern  the  estate  of  the  soul.  As  the  voice 
of  it,  I  show,  was  as  loud  as  thunder :  so  the  sight  of  it  is  as  pierc- 
ing and  quick  as  lightning.  It  presently  sees  the  guilt,  and  looks 
through  all  the  flaws  and  blemishes  of  a  sinful  action ;  and  on  the 
other  side,  observes  the  candidness  of  a  man's  very  principles,  the 
sincerity  of  his  intentions,  and  the  whole  carriage  of  every  circum- 
stance in  a  virtuous  performance.  So  strict  and  accurate  is  this 
spiritual  inquisition. 

Upon  which  account  it  is,  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  perfect 
secresy,  to  encourage  a  rational  mind  to  the  perpetration  of  any 
base  action.  For  a  man  must  first  extinguish  and  put  out  the  great 
light  within  him,  his  conscience ;  he  must  get  away  from  himself, 
and  shake  off  the  thousand  witnesses,  which  he  always  carries 
about  him,  before  he  can  be  alone.  And  where  there  is  no  soli- 
tude, I  am  sure  there  can  be  no  secresy. 

It  is  confessed  indeed,  that  a  long  and  a  bold  course  of  sinning 
may,  as  we  have  shown  elsewhere,  very  much  dim  and  darken 
the  discerning  faculty  of  conscience.  For  so  the  apostle  assures 
us  it  did  with  those  in  Rom.  i.  21,  and  the  same,  no  doubt,  it  does 
every  day ;  but  still  so  as  to  leave  such  persons,  both  then  and 
now,  many  notable  lucid  intervals,  sufficient  to  convince  them  of 
their  deviations  from  reason  and  natural  religion,  and  thereby  to 
render  them  inexcusable  ;  and  so,  in  a  word,  to  stop  their  mouths, 
though  not  save  their  souls.  In  short,  their  conscience  was  not 
stark  dead,  but  under  a  kind  of  spiritual  apoplexy  or  deliquium. 
The  operation  was  hindered,  but  the  faculty  not  destroyed.  And 
now,  if  conscience  be  naturally  thus  apprehensive  and  sagacious, 
certainly  this  ought  to  be  another  great  ground,  over  and  above 
its  bare  authority,  why  we  should  trust  and  rely  upon  the  reports 
of  it.  For  knowledge  is  still  the  ground  and  reason  of  trust ;  and 
so  much  as  any  one  has  of  discernment,  so  far  he  is  secured  from 
error  and  deception,  and  for  that  cause  fit  to  be  confided  in.  No 
witness  so  much  to  be  credited  as  an  eye-witness.  And  conscience 
is  like  the  great  eye  of  the  world,  the  sun,  always  open,  always 

Vol.  I. — 50 


394 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIV. 


making  discoveries.  Justly,  therefore,  may  we  by  the  light  of  it 
take  a  view  of  our  condition. 

2.  Another  property  or  quality  of  conscience,  enabling  it  to 
judge  so  truly  of  our  spiritual  estate,  is  the  tenderness  of  its  sense. 
For  as  by  the  quickness  of  its  sight,  it  directs  us  what  to  do,  or 
not  to  do ;  so  by  this  tenderness  of  its  sense,  it  excuses  or  accuses 
us,  as  we  have  done  or  not  done  according  to  those  directions. 
And  it  is  altogether  as  nice,  delicate,  and  tender  in  feeling,  as  it 
can  be  perspicacious  and  quick  in  seeing.  For  conscience,  you 
know,  is  still  called  and  accounted  the  eye  of  the  soul :  and  how 
troublesome  is  the  least  mote  or  dust  falling  into  the  eye !  And 
how  quickly  does  it  weep  and  water  upon  the  least  grievance  that 
afflicts  it! 

And  no  less  exact  is  the  sense  which  conscience,  preserved  in 
its  native  purity,  has  of  the  least  sin.  For  as  great  sins  waste,  so 
small  ones  are  enough  to  wound  it ;  and  every  wound,  you  know, 
is  painful,  till  it  festers  beyond  recovery.  As  soon  as  ever  sin  gives 
the  blow,  conscience  is  the  first  thing  that  feels  the  smart.  No 
sooner  does  the  poisoned  arrow  enter,  but  that  begins  to  bleed  in- 
wardly ;  sin  and  sorrow,  the  venom  of  one  and  the  anguish  of  the 
other,  being  things  inseparable. 

Conscience,  if  truly  tender,  never  complains  without  a  cause, 
though  I  confess  there  is  a  new  fashioned  sort  of  tenderness  of  con- 
science which  always  does  so.  But  that  is  like  the  tenderness  of 
a  bog  or  quagmire,  and  it  is  very  dangerous  coming  near  it,  for  fear 
of  being  swallowed  up  by  it.  But  when  conscience  has  once 
acquired  this  artificial  tenderness,  it  will  strangely  enlarge  or  con- 
tract its  swallow  as  it  pleases ;  so  that  sometimes  a  camel  shall  slide 
down  with  ease,  where  at  other  times,  even  a  gnat  may  chance  to 
stick  by  the  way.  It  is,  indeed,  such  a  kind  of  tenderness,  as 
makes  the  person  who  has  it  generally  very  tender  of  obeying  the 
laws,  but  never  so  of  breaking  them.  And  therefore,  since  it  is 
commonly  at  such  variance  with  the  law,  I  think  the  law  is  the 
fittest  thing  to  deal  with  it. 

In  the  meantime,  let  no  man  deceive  himself,  or  think  that 
true  tenderness  of  conscience  is  any  thing  else  but  an  awful  and 
exact  sense  of  the  rule  which  should  direct,  and  of  the  law  which 
should  govern  it.  And  while  it  steers  by  this  compass,  and  is 
sensible  of  every  declination  from  it,  so  long  it  is  truly  and  pro- 
perly tender  and  fit  to  be  relied  upon,  whether  it  checks  or 
approves  a  man  for  what  he  does.  For  from  hence  alone  springs 
its  excusing  or  accusing  power ;  all  accusation,  in  the  very  nature 
of  the  thing,  still  supposing  and  being  founded  upon  some  law ; 
for  where  there  is  no  law,  there  can  be  no  transgression ;  and 
where  there  can  be  no  transgression,  I  am  sure  there  ought  to  be 
no  accusation. 

And  here,  when  I  speak  of  law,  I  mean  both  the  law  of  God 
and  of  man  too.    For  where  the  matter  of  a  law  is  a  thing  not 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


395 


evil,  every  law  of  man  is  virtually,  and,  at  a  second  hand,  the  law 
of  God  also.  Forasmuch  as  it  binds  in  the  strength  of  the  divine 
law,  commanding  obedience  to  every  ordinance  of  man;  as  we 
have  already  shown.  And  therefore  all  tenderness  of  conscience 
against  such  laws  is  hypocrisy,  and  patronized  by  none  but  men 
of  design,  who  look  upon  it  as  the  fittest  engine  to  get  into  power 
by ;  which,  by  the  way,  when  they  are  once  possessed  of,  they  ge- 
nerally manage  with  as  little  tenderness  as  they  do  with  conscience  : 
of  which  we  have  had  too  much  experience  already,  and  it  would 
be  but  ill  venturing  upon  more. 

In  a  word,  conscience  not  acting  by  and  under  a  law,  is  a  bound- 
less, daring,  and  presumptuous  thing :  and  for  any  one,  by  virtue 
thereof,  to  challenge  to  himself  a  privilege  of  doing  what  he  will, 
and  of  being  unaccountable  for  what  he  does,  is  in  all  reason  too 
much  either  for  man  or  angel  to  pretend  to. 

The  third  and  last  property  of  conscience  which  I  shall  men- 
tion, and  which  makes  the  verdict  of  it  so  authentic,  is  its  great 
and  rigorous  impartiality.  For  as  its  wonderful  apprehensiveness 
made  that  it  could  not  easily  be  deceived,  so  this  makes  that  it 
will  by  no  means  deceive.  A  judge,  you  know,  may  be  skilful  in 
understanding  a  cause,  and  yet  partial  in  giving  sentence.  But 
it  is  much  otherwise  with  conscience  ;  no  artifice  can  induce  it  to 
accuse  the  innocent  or  to  absolve  the  guilty.  No,  we  may  as  well 
bribe  the  light  and  the  day  to  represent  white  things  black,  or  black 
white. 

What  pitiful  things  are  power,  rhetoric,  or  riches,  when  they 
would  terrify,  dissuade,  or  buy  off  conscience  from  pronouncing 
sentence  according  to  the  merit  of  a  man's  actions !  For  still,  as 
we  have  shown,  conscience  is  a  copy  of  the  divine  law  ;  and  though 
judges  may  be  bribed  or  frightened,  yet  law  cannot.  The  law  is 
impartial  and  inflexible  ;  it  has  no  passiojis  or  affections ;  and  con- 
sequently never  accepts  persons,  nor  dispenses  with  itself. 

For  let  the  most  potent  sinner  upon  earth  speak  out,  and  tell 
us  whether  he  can  command  down  the  clamours  and  revilings  of 
a  guilty  conscience,  and  impose  silence  upon  that  bold  reprover. 
He  may  perhaps  for  a  while  put  on  a  high  and  a  big  look  ;  but  can 
he,  for  all  that,  look  conscience  out  of  countenance  ?  And  he 
may  also  dissemble  a  little  forced  jollity-,  that  is,  he  may  court  his 
mistress,  and  quaff  his  cups,  and  perhaps  sprinkle  them  now  and 
then  with  a  few  dammes ;  but  who  in  the  mean  time,  besides  his 
own  wretched  miserable  self,  knows  of  those  secret,  bitter  infu- 
sions, which  that  terrible  thing  called  conscience,  makes  into  all 
his  draughts  ?  Believe  it,  most  of  the  appearing  mirth  in  the  world 
is  not  mirth,  but  art.  The  wounded  spirit  is  not  seen,  but  walks 
under  a  disguise  ;  and  still  the  less  you  see  of  it,  the  better  it 
looks. 

On  the  contrary,  if  we  consider  the  virtuous  person,  let  him 
declare  freely,  whether  ever  his  conscience  checked  him  for  his 


396  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  XXIV, 


innocence,  or  upraided  him  for  an  action  of  duty ;  did  it  ever  be- 
stow any  of  its  hidden  lashes  or  concealed  bites  on  a  mind  se- 
verely pure,  chaste,  and  religious  ? 

But  when  conscience  shall  complain,  cry  out,  and  recoil,  let  a 
man  descend  into  himself  with  too  just  a  suspicion,  that  all  is  not 
right  within.  For  surely  that  hue  and  cry  was  not  raised  upon  him 
for  nothing.  The  spoils  of  a  rifled  innocence  are  borne  away,  and 
the  man  has  stolen  something  from  his  own  soul,  for  which  he  ought 
to  be  pursued,  and  will  at  last  certainly  be  overtaken. 

Let  every  one  therefore  attend  the  sentence  of  his  conscience : 
for  he  may  be  sure  it  will  not  daub  nor  flatter.  It  is  as  severe  as 
law,  as  impartial  as  truth.  It  will  neither  conceal  nor  pervert  what 
it  knows. 

And  thus  I  have  done  with  the  third  of  those  four  particulars 
at  first  proposed,  and  shown  whence  and  upon  what  account  it  is, 
that  the  testimony  of  conscience  (concerning  our  spiritual  estates) 
comes  to  be  so  authentic,  and  so  much  to  be  relied  upon  :  namely, 
for  that  it  is  fully  empowered  and  commissioned  to  this  great 
office  by  God  himself;  and  withal,  that  it  is  extremely  quick- 
sighted  to  apprehend  and  discern  ;  and  moreover  very  tender  and 
sensible  of  every  thing  that  concerns  the  soul.  And,  lastly,  that  it 
is  most  exactly  and  severely  impartial  in  judging  of  whatso- 
ever comes  before  it.  Every  one  of  which  qualifications  justly 
contributes  to  the  credit  and  authority  of  the  sentence  which 
shall  be  passed  by  it.    And  so  we  are  at  length  arrived  at  the 

IV.  And  last  thing  proposed  from  the  words  ;  which  was  to 
assign  some  particular  cases  or  instances,  in  which  this  confidence  to- 
wards God,  suggested  by  a  rightly  informed  conscience,  does  most 
eminently  show  and  exert  itself. 

I.  I  shall  mention  three. 

1.  In  our  addresses  to  God  by  prayer.  When  a  man  shall  pre- 
sume to  come, and  place  himself  in  the  presence  of  the  great 
Searcher  of  hearts,  and  to  ask  something  of  him,  while  his  con- 
science is  all  the  while  smiting  him  on  the  face,  and  telling  him 
what  a  rebel  and  traitor  he  is  to  the  majesty  which  he  supplicates ; 
surely  such  a  one  should  think  with  himself,  that  the  God  whom 
he  prays  to  is  greater  than  his  conscience,  and  pierces  into  all  the 
filth  and  baseness  of  his  heart  with  a  much  clearer  and  more  severe 
inspection.  And  if  so,  will  he  not  likewise  resent  the  provo- 
cation more  deeply,  and  revenge  it  upon  him  more  terribly,  if 
repentance  does  not  divert  the  blow  ?  Every  such  prayer  is  big 
with  impiety  and  contradiction,  and  makes  as  odious  a  noise  in 
the  ears  of  God,  as  the  harangues  of  one  of  those  rebel  fasts  or 
humiliations  in  the  year  forty-one ;  invoking  the  blessings  of 
heaven  upon  such  actions  and  designs  as  nothing  but  hell  could 
reward. 

One  of  the  most  peculiar  qualifications  of  a  heart  rightly  dis- 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


397 


posed  for  prayer,  is  a  well-grounded  confidence  of  a  man's  fitness 
for  that  duty.  In  Heb.  x.  22,  "  Let  us  draw  near  with  a  true 
heart,  in  full  assurance  of  faith,"  says  the  apostle.  But  whence 
must  this  assurance  spring  ?  Why,  we  are  told  in  the  very  next 
words  of  the  same  verse ;  "  having  our  hearts  sprinkled  from  an 
evil  conscience otherwise  the  voice  of  an  impure  conscience 
will  cry  much  louder  than  our  prayers,  and  speak  more  effectually 
against  us  than  these  can  intercede  for  us. 

And  now,  if  prayer  be  the  great  conduit  of  mercy,  by  which  the 
blessings  of  heaven  are  derived  upon  the  creature,  and  the  noble 
instrument  of  converse  between  God  and  the  soul,  then  surely  that 
which  renders  it  ineffectual  and  loathsome  to  God,  must  needs  be 
of  the  most  mischievious  and  destructive  consequence  to  mankind 
imaginable :  and  consequently  to  be  removed  with  all  that  earnest- 
ness and  concern,  with  which  a  man  would  rid  himself  of  a  plague 
or  a  mortal  infection.  For  it  taints  and  pollutes  every  prayer ;  it 
turns  an  oblation  into  an  affront,  and  the  odours  of  a  sacrifice  into 
the  exhalations  of  a  carcase.  And  in  a  word  makes  the  heavens 
over  us  brass,  denying  all  passage,  either  to  descending  mercies  or 
ascending  petitions. 

But  on  the  other  side,  when  a  man's  breast  is  clear,  and  the 
same  heart  which  indites,  does  also  encourage  his  prayer,  when  his 
innocence  pushes  on  the  attempt  and  vouches  the  success  ;  such  a 
one  goes  boldly  to  the  throne  of  grace,  and  his  boldness  is  not 
greater  than  his  welcome.  God  recognizes  the  voice  of  his  own 
Spirit  interceding  within  him ;  and  his  prayers  are  not  only  followed, 
but  even  prevented  with  an  answer. 

2.  A  second  instance,  in  which  this  confidence  towards  God 
does  so  remarkably  show  itself,  is  at  the  time  of  some  notable 
trial  or  sharp  affliction.  When  a  man's  friends  shall  desert  him, 
his  relations  disown  him,  and  all  dependencies  fail  him,  and,  in  a 
word,  the  whole  world  frown  upon  him,  certainly  it  will  then  be 
of  some  moment  to  have  a  friend  in  the  court  of  conscience, 
which  shall,  as  it  were,  buoy  up  his  sinking  spirits,  and  speak 
greater  things  for  him  than  all  these  together  can  declaim  against 
him. 

For  it  is  most  certain  that  no  height  of  honour,  nor  affluence  of 
fortune,  can  keep  a  man  from  being  miserable,  nor  indeed  con- 
temptible, when  an  enraged  conscience  shall  fly  at  him,  and  take 
him  by  the  throat ;  so  it  is  also  certain,  that  no  temporal  adversities 
can  cut  off  those  inward,  secret,  invisible  supplies  of  comfort,  which 
conscience  shall  pour  in  upon  distressed  innocence,  in  spite  and  in 
defiance  of  all  worldly  calamities. 

Naturalists  observe,  that  when  the  frost  seizes  upon  wine,  they 
are  only  the  slighter  and  more  waterish  parts  of  it  that  are  subject 
to  be  congealed  ;  but  still  there  is  a  mighty  spirit,  which  can  retreat 
into  itself,  and  there  within  its  own  compass  lie  secure  from  the 
freezing  impression  of  the  element  round  about  it.    And  just  so  it 

2  L 


398 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIV. 


is  with  the  spirit  of  a  man,  while  a  good  conscience  makes  it  firm 
and  impenetrable.  An  outward  affliction  can  no  more  benumb  or 
quell  it,  than  a  blast  of  wind  can  freeze  up  the  blood  in  a  man's 
veins,  or  a  little  shower  of  rain  soak  into  his  heart,  and  there 
quench  the  principle  of  life  itself. 

Take  the  two  greatest  instances  of  misery,  which,  I  think,  are 
incident  to  human  nature ;  to  wit,  poverty  and  shame,  and  I  dare 
oppose  conscience  to  them  both. 

And  first  for  poverty.  Suppose  a  man  stripped  of  all,  driven 
out  of  house  and  home,  and  perhaps  out  of  his  country  too  (which 
having  within  our  memory  happened  to  so  many,  may  too  easily, 
God  knows,  be  supposed  again) ;  yet  if  his  conscience  shall  tell 
him,  that  it  was  not  for  any  failure  in  his  own  duty,  but  from  the 
success  of  another's  villany,  that  all  this  befell  him ;  why  then 
his  banishment  becomes  his  preferment,  his  rags  his  trophies,  his 
nakedness  his  ornament ;  and  so  long  as  his  innocence  is  his  repast, 
he  feasts  and  banquets  upon  bread  and  water.  He  has  disarmed 
his  afflictions,  unstrung  his  miseries :  and  though  he  has  not  the 
proper  happiness  of  the  world,  yet  he  has  the  greatest  that  is  to  be 
enjoyed  in  it. 

And  for  this  we  might  appeal  to  the  experience  of  those  great 
and  good  men,  who,  in  the  late  times  of  rebellion  and  confusion, 
were  forced  into  foreign  countries  for  their  unshaken  firmness  and 
fidelity  to  the  oppressed  cause  of  majesty  and  religion,  whether 
their  conscience  did  not,  like  a  fidus  Achates,  still  bear  them  com- 
pany, stick  close  to  them,  and  suggest  comfort ;  even  when  the 
causes  of  comfort  were  invisible ;  and  in  a  word,  verify  that  great 
saying  of  the  apostle  in  their  mouths  ;  "  We  have  nothing,  and  yet 
we  possess  all  things." 

For  it  is  not  barely  a  man's  abridgment  in  his  external  accom- 
modations which  makes  him  miserable,  but  when  his  conscience 
shall  hit  him  in  the  teeth,  and  tell  him  that  it  was  his  sin  and  his 
folly  which  brought  him  under  these  abridgments :  that  his  present 
scanty  meals  are  but  the  natural  effects  of  his  former  overfull  ones ; 
that  it  was  his  tailor,  and  his  cook,  his  fine  fashions,  and  his  French 
ragouts,  which  sequestered  him,  and  in  a  word,  that  he  came  by 
his  poverty  as  sinfully  as  some  usually  do  by  their  riches ;  and  con- 
sequently, that  Providence  treats  him  with  all  these  severities,  not 
by  way  of  trial,  but  by  way  of  punishment  and  revenge.  The 
mind  surely,  of  itself,  can  feel  none  of  the  burnings  of  a  fever ;  but 
if  my  fever  be  occasioned  by  a  surfeit,  and  that  surfeit  caused  by 
my  sin,  it  is  that  which  adds  fuel  to  the  fiery  disease,  and  rage  to 
the  distemper. 

(2.)  Let  us  also  consider  the  case  of  calumny  and  disgrace; 
doubtless  the  sting  of  every  reproachful  speech  is  the  truth  of 
it ;  and  to  be  conscious,  is  that  which  gives  an  edge  and  keenness 
to  the  invective.  Otherwise,  when  conscience  shall  plead  not 
guilty  to  the  charge,  a  man  entertains  it  not  as  an  indictment, 


THE  NATURE  AND  MEASURES  OF  CONSCIENCE.  399 

but  as  a  libel.  He  hears  all  such  calumnies  with  a  generous  un- 
concernment ;  and  receiving  them  at  one  ear,  gives  them  a  free  and 
easy  passage  through  the  other :  they  fall  upon  him  like  rain  or  hail 
upon  an  oiled  garment ;  they  make  a  noise  indeed,  but  can  find  no 
entrance.  The  very  whispers  of  an  acquitting  conscience  will 
drown  the  voice  of  the  loudest  slander. 

What  a  long  charge  of  hypocrisy,  and  many  other  base  things, 
did  Job's  friends  draw  up  against  him !  but  he  regarded  it  no  more 
than  the  dunghill  which  he  sat  upon,  while  his  conscience  enabled 
him  to  appeal  even  to  God  himself,  and  in  spite  of  calumny  to 
assert  and  hold  fast  his  integrity. 

And  did  not  Joseph  lie  under  as  black  an  infamy  as  the  charge 
of  the  highest  ingratitude  and  the  lewdest  villany  could  fasten  upon 
him  ?  Yet  his  conscience  raised  him  so  much  above  it,  that  he 
scorned  so  much  as  to  clear  himself,  or  to  recriminate  the  strumpet 
by  a  true  narrative  of  the  matter.  For  we  read  nothing  of  that  in 
the  whole  story:  such  confidence,  such  greatness  of  spirit,  does  a 
clear  conscience  give  a  man ;  always  making  him  more  solicitous 
to  preserve  his  innocence  than  concerned  to  prove  it.  And  so  we 
come  now  to  the 

(3.)  And  last  instance,  in  which,  above  all  others,  this  confi- 
dence towards  God  does  most  eminently  show  and  exert  itself; 
and  that  is,  at  the  time  of  death ;  which  surely  gives  the  grand 
opportunity  of  trying  both  the  strength  and  worth  of  every  prin- 
ciple. When  a  man  shall  be  just  about  to  quit  the  stage  of  this 
world,  to  put  off  his  mortality,  and  to  deliver  up  his  last  accounts 
to  God  ;  at  which  sad  time,  his  memory  shall  serve  him  for  little 
else,  but  to  terrify  him  with  a  sprightly  review  of  his  past  life, 
and  his  former  extravagancies  stripped  of  all  their  pleasure,  but 
retaining  their  guilt :  what  is  it  then,  that  can  promise  him  a 
fair  passage  into  the  other  world,  or  a  comfortable  appearance 
before  his  dreadful  Judge,  when  he  is  there  ?  Not  all  the  friends 
and  interests,  all  the  riches  and  honours  under  heaven,  can  speak 
so  much  as  a  word  for  him,  or  one  word  of  comfort  to  him  in 
that  condition ;  they  may  possibly  reproach,  but  they  cannot 
relieve  him. 

No,  at  this  disconsolate  time,  when  the  busy  tempter  shall  be 
more  than  usually  apt  to  vex  and  trouble  him,  and  the  pains  of  a 
dying  body  to  hinder  and  discompose  him,  and  the  settlement  of 
worldly  affairs  to  disturb  and  confound  him ;  and  in  a  word,  all 
things  conspire  to  make  his  sick-bed  grievous  and  uneasy :  nothing 
can  then  stand  up  against  all  these  ruins,  and  speak  life  in  the 
midst  of  death,  but  a  clear  conscience. 

And  the  testimony  of  that  shall  make  the  comforts  of  heaven 
descend  upon  his  weary  head,  like  a  refreshing  dew  or  shower 
upon  a  parched  ground.  It  shall  give  him  some  lively  earnests 
and  secret  anticipations  of  his  approaching  joy.  It  shall  bid  his 
soul  go  out  of  the  body  undauntedly,  and  lift  up  its  head  with 


400 


DR.    SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIV. 


confidence  before  saints  and  angels.  Surely  the  comfort  which 
it  conveys  at  this  season  is  something  bigger  than  the  capacities  of 
mortality ;  mighty  and  unspeakable  ;  and  not  to  be  understood  till  it 
comes  to  be  felt. 

And  now,  who  would  not  quit  all  the  pleasures,  and  trash,  and 
trifles,  which  are  apt  to  captivate  the  heart  of  man,  and  pursue  the 
greatest  rigours  of  piety,  and  austerities  of  a  good  life,  to  purchase 
to  himself  such  a  conscience,  as  at  the  hour  of  death,  when  all  the 
friendships  of  the  world  shall  bid  him  adieu,  and  the  whole  creation 
turn  its  back  upon  him,  shall  dismiss  his  soul  and  close  his  eyes 
with  that  blessed  sentence,  "  Well  done,  thou  good  and  faithful 
servant,  enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord  ?" 

For  he  whose  conscience  enables  him  to  look  God  in  the  face 
with  confidence  here,  shall  be  sure  to  see  his  face  also  with  comfort 
hereafter. 

Which  God  of  his  mercy  grant  to  us  all ;  to  whom  be  rendered 
and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  do- 
minion, both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY* 


TO  THE  MOST  REV.   FATHER  IN  GOD 

NARCISSUS,  LORD  ARCHBISHOP  OF  DUBLIN,  HIS  GRACE. 
My  Lord, 

The  particular  acquaintance  and  friendship  which  your  Grace  was 
pleased  to  honour  me  with  while  you  lived  at  Oxford,  have  embold- 
ened me  to  address  myself  to  your  lordship  at  this  great  distance  of 
place,  and  greater  of  condition ;  in  hopes  that  by  your  Grace's  ad- 
vancement to  so  high  a  station  in  the  church,  that  which  before  was 
only  friendship,  may  now  improve  into  patronage  and  protection. 
And  yet,  as  ambitious  as  I  am  of  so  ennobling  a  patronage,  and  as  sin- 
gular a  value  as  I  have  for  your  Grace's  favour,  I  must  needs  own, 
that  the  design  of  my  present  application  to  your  Grace  is  not  so  much 
to  crave  a  favour,  as  to  pay  a  debt ;  and,  in  answer  to  the  many  obli- 
gations I  lie  under,  to  congratulate  your  Grace  on  that  height  of  dignity 
and  greatness  to  which  Providence  has  so  happily  raised  you,  and  your 
own  worth  so  justly  entitled  you;  and  so,  without  your  seeking  (and 
much  less  sneaking)  for  it,  made  you,  to  your  great  honour,  to  be  sought 
for  by  it :  there  being,  as  from  my  heart  I  believe,  few  examples  in 
the  world  of  so  much  merit  and  so  much  modesty  in  conjunction. 

It  is,  indeed,  no  small  infelicity  to  the  church  of  England,  to  have 
parted  with  so  extraordinary  a  member ;  but  none  at  all  I  conceive  to 
your  Grace,  that  you  are  placed  where  you  are  ;  especially  if  your 
Grace  shall  consider  the  present  estate  of  our  church  here,  as  through 
the  arts  of  her  enemies  she  stands  divided  against  herself ;  and  that 
only  by  two  or  three  odd  new  terms  of  distinction,  maliciously  invented 
and  studiously  made  use  of  for  that  base  purpose  :  such  a  sovereign, 
or  at  least  such  a  peculiar  method  have  some  found  out  for  preserving 
our  church,  if  the  best  way  to  preserve  a  body  be  by  cutting  it  asunder. 
For  those  of  the  ancienter  members  of  her  communion,  who  have  all 
along  owned  and  contended  for  a  strict  conformity  to  her  rules  and 
sanctions,  as  the  surest  course  to  establish  her,  have  been  of  late  repre- 
sented, or  rather  reprobated,  under  the  inodiating  character  of  high 
churchmen,  and  thereby  stand  marked  out  for  all  the  discouragement 
that  spite  and  power  together  can  pass  upon  them ;  while  those  of  the 
contrary  way  and  principle  are  distinguished,  or  rather  sanctified,  by 
the  fashionable  endearing  name  of  low  churchmen,  not  from  their 
affecting  (we  may  be  sure)  a  lower  condition  in  the  church  than  others, 
since  none  lie  so  low  but  they  can  look  as  high  ;  but  from  the  low  con- 
dition which  the  authors  of  this  distinction  would  fain  bring  the  church 
itself  into :  a  work  in  which  they  have  made  no  small  progress  already 
*  This  Dedication  refers  to  the  twelve  sermons  next  following. 

Vol.  I.— 51  2l2  401 


403 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY. 


And  thus,  by  these  ungenerous,  as  well  as  unconscionable  practices, 
a  fatal  rent  and  division  is  made  amongst  us ;  and  being  so,  I  think, 
those  of  the  concision  who  made  it,  would  do  well  to  consider,  whether 
that  which  our  Saviour  assures  us  will  destroy  a  kingdom,  be  the  like- 
liest way  to  settle  and  support  a  church.  But  I  question  not,  but 
these  dividers  will  very  shortly  receive  thanks  from  the  papists  for 
the  good  services  they  have  done  them ;  and  in  the  meantime  they 
may  be  sure  of  their  scoffs. 

Never,  certainly,  were  the  fundamental  articles  of  our  faith  so  boldly 
impugned,  nor  the  honour  of  our  church  so  foully  blemished,  as  they 
have  been  of  late  years ;  while  the  Socinians  have  had  their  full 
uncontrolled  fling  at  both  ;  and  the  Tritheists  have  injured  and  exposed 
them  more  by  pretending  to  defend  them  against  the  Socinians,  than 
the  Socinians  themselves  did  or  could  do  by  opposing  them.  For 
surely  it  would  be  thought  a  very  odd  way  of  ridding  a  man  of  the 
plague  by  running  him  through  with  a  sword  ;  or  of  curing  him  of  a 
lethargy  by  casting  him  into  a  calenture ;  a  disease  of  a  contrary 
nature,  indeed,  but  no  less  fatal  to  the  patient ;  who  equally  dies, 
whether  his  sickness  or  his  physic,  the  malignity  of  his  distempers  or 
the  method  of  his  cure,  despatches  him.  And  in  like  manner  must 
it  fare  with  a  church,  which,  feeling  itself  struck  with  the  poison  of 
Socinianism,  flies  to  Tritheism  for  an  antidote. 

But  at  length,  happily  steps  in  the  royal  authority  to  the  church's 
relief,  with  several  healing  injunctions  in  its  hands,  for  the  composing 
and  ending  the  disputes  about  the  Trinity  then  on  foot :  and  those 
indeed  so  wisely  framed,  so  seasonably  timed,  and  (by  the  king,  at 
least)  so  graciously  intended,  that  they  must  in  all  likelihood,  without 
any  other  Irenicon,  have  restored  peace  to  the  church,  had  it  not  been 
for  the  importunity  and  partiality  of  some,  who  having  by  the  awe  of 
these  injunctions  endeavoured  to  silence  the  opposite  party,  which 
by  their  arguments  they  could  not  do,  and  withal,  looking  upon  them- 
selves as  privileged  persons,  and  so  above  those  ordinances  which 
others  were  to  be  subject  to,  resolved  not  to  be  silent  themselves  ;  but 
renewing  the  contest,  partly  by  throwing  Muggleton  and  Rigaltius, 
with  some  other  foul  stuff,  in  their  adversaries'  faces ;  and  partly  by 
a  shameless  reprinting  (without  the  least  reinforcing)  the  same 
exploded  tritheistic  notions  again  and  again,  they  quite  broke  through 
the  royal  prohibitions,  and  soon  after  began  to  take  as  great  a  liberty 
in  venting  their  innovations  and  invectives,  as  ever  they  had  done 
before  ;  so  that  he,  who  shall  impartially  consider  the  course  taken 
by  these  men,  with  reference  to  those  engaged  on  the  other  side  of 
this  controversy  about  the  Trinity,  will  find  that  their  whole  proceed- 
ing in  it  resembles  nothing  so  much  as  a  thief's  binding  the  hands  of 
an  honest  man  with  a  cord,  much  fitter  for  his  own  neck. 

But,  blessed  be  God,  matters  stand  not  so  with  you  in  Ireland ;  the 
climate  there  being  not  more  impatient  of  poisonous  animals,  than  the 
church  of  poisonous  opinions;  a  universal  concurrent  orthodoxy 
shining  all  over  it,  from  the  superior  clergy  who  preside,  to  the  infe- 
rior placed  under  them:  so  that  we  never  hear  from  thence  of  any 
presbyter,  and  much  less  of  any  dean,  who  dares  innovate  upon  the 
faith  received  ;  and  least  of  all  (should  such  a  wretch  chance  to  start 
up  among  you)  can  I  hear  of  any  bishop  likely  to  debase  his  style 


EPISTLE  DEDICATORY. 


403 


and  character  so  low,  as  either  to  defend  the  man,  or  colour  over  his 
opinions.  Nor,  lastly,  do  we  find  that  in  the  judgment  of  the  clergy- 
there,  a  man's  having  written  against  one  sort  of  heresy  or  heterodoxy, 
ought  to  justify  or  excuse  him  in  writing  for  another,  and  much  less 
for  a  worse. 

The  truth  is,  such  things  as  these  make  the  case  with  us  here  in 
England  come  too  near  that  of  Poland  about  120  or  130  years  ago,* 
where  the  doctrine  of  three  distinct  infinite  spirits  began  and  led  the 
dance,  and  was  quickly  followed  (as  the  design  was  laid)  by  Soci- 
nianism ;  whereupon  their  old  popery  got  a  firmer  establishment  and 
more  rigorous  imposition  than  before  ;  the  government  preferring  a 
less  pure  and  perfect  Christianity  before  the  most  refined  Turcism. 
This  was  the  method  taken  there,  and  I  wish  it  may  not  have  the  like 
issue  here. 

But,  on  the  contrary,  amongst  you,  when  a  certain  Mahometan 
Christian  (no  new  thing  of  late)  notorious  for  his  blasphemous  denial 
of  the  mysteries  of  our  religion,  and  his  insufferable  virulence  against 
the  whole  Christian  priesthood,  thought  to  have  found  shelter  amongst 
you,  the  parliament,  to  their  immortal  honour,  presently  sent  him 
packing,  and  without  the  help  of  a  fagot  soon  made  the  kingdom  too 
hot  for  him :  a  sufficient  argument  doubtless,  how  far  we  are  from 
needing  those  savage  executions  used  by  the  papists  to  rid  the  church 
of  heretics  and  blasphemers ;  where  authority,  animated  with  due 
zeal,  will  attempt  that  worthy  work  by  other  more  humane,  but  not 
less  effectual  means.  Nothing  certainly  but  power,  as  the  world 
now  goes,  can  keep  the  church  in  peace. 

And  now,  my  lord,  may  that  God,  by  whom  princes  and  prelates 
govern,  and  churches  stand,  long  preserve  your  Grace,  and  that  excel- 
lent church  which  you  are  so  eminent  a  pillar  of  and  ornament  to  ; 
and  which  by  her  incomparable  courage  and  faithfulness  lately  shown 
in  preserving  that  great  deposition,  the  holy  religion  committed  to  her 
trust,  has  gotten  herself  a  name  which  will  never  die  ;  and  such  a 
solid  well-founded  reputation,  as  no  bending  this  way  or  that  way, 
no  trimming  or  tricking  it,  ever  could  or  can  give  so  ample  and  so 
considerable  a  body:  for  it  is  lead  only  that  bends  to  almost  every 
thing,  which  the  nobler  metals  cannot  do,  and  the  nobler  sort  of  minds 
will  not. 

But  I  fear  I  trespass  too  far  upon  your  Grace's  time  and  business, 
and  therefore  humbly  imploring  your  Grace's  blessing,  I  lay  these 
poor  papers  at  your  feet,  infinitely  unworthy,  I  confess,  of  the  accept- 
ance of  so  great  a  person,  and  the  perusal  of  so  judicious  an  eye;  but 
yet  at  present  the  best  pledges  I  can  give  your  Grace  of  those  sin- 
cere respects  and  services,  which  your  Grace  ought  always  to  claim, 
and  shall  never  fail  to  receive  from, 

My  lord, 

Your  Grace's  ever  faithful  and  most  obedient  servant, 

Robert  South. 

Westminster,  April  30,  1698. 

*  See  a  learned  tract  in  8vo,  entitled,  The  Growth  of  Error,  &c,  sect.  8,  printed  in 
the  year  1697. 


404 


SERMON  XXV. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT  STATED,  AND  THE  IMPOSSIBILITY  OF 
MAN'S  MERITING  OF  GOD. 

[Preached  at  Westminster  Abbey,  December  5,  1697.] 

Job.  xxii.  2. 
Can  a  man  be  profitable  unto  God  ? 

It  is  a  matter  of  no  small  moment  certainly  for  a  man  to  be 
rightly  informed  upon  what  terms  and  conditions  he  is  to  transact 
with  God,  and  God  with  him,  in  the  great  business  of  his 
salvation.  For  by  knowing  upon  what  terms  he  must  obtain 
eternal  happiness  hereafter,  he  will  know  also  upon  what 
grounds  he  is  to  hope  for  and  expect  it  here ;  and  so  be  able  to 
govern  both  his  actions  and  expectations  according  to  the  nature 
of  the  thing  he  is  in  pursuit  of;  lest  otherwise  he  should  chance 
to  fail  of  the  prize  he  runs  for,  by  mistaking  the  way  he  should 
run  in. 

St.  Paul,  as  plainly  as  words  can  express  a  thing,  tells  us  that 
eternal  life  is  the  gift  of  God ;  and,  consequently,  to  be  expected 
by  us  only  as  such :  nay,  he  asserts  it  to  be  a  gift  in  the  very 
same  verse  in  which  he  affirms  death  to  be  as  due  to  a  sinner,  as 
wages  are  to  a  workman,  Romans  vi.  23.  Than  which  words 
nothing  certainly  can  be  more  full  and  conclusive,  that  salvation 
proceeds  wholly  upon  free  gift,  though  damnation  upon  strict 
desert. 

Nevertheless,  such  is  the  extreme  folly,  or  rather  sottishness 
of  man's  corrupt  nature,  that  this  does  by  no  means  satisfy  him. 
For  though  indeed  he  would  fain  be  happy,  yet  fain  would  he 
also  thank  none  for  it  but  himself.  And  though  he  finds,  that 
not  only  his  duty  but  his  necessity  brings  him  every  day  upon 
his  knees  to  almighty  God  for  the  very  bread  he  eats  ;  yet  when 
he  comes  to  deal  with  him  about  spirituals  (things  of  infinitely 
greater  value),  he  appears  and  acts,  not  as  a  supplicant,  but  as  a 
merchant ;  not  as  one  who  comes  to  be  relieved,  but  to  traffic. 
For  something  he  would  receive  of  God,  and  something  he  would 
give  him  ;  and  nothing  will  content  this  insolent,  yet  impotent  crea- 
ture, unless  he  may  seem  to  buy  the  very  thing  he  begs.  Such 
being  the  pride  and  baseness  of  some  spirits,  that  where  they  re- 
ceive a  benefit  too  big  for  them  to  requite,  they  will  even  deny  the 
kindness,  and  disown  the  obligation. 

Now  this  great  self-delusion,  so  prevalent  upon  most  minds,  is 
the  thing  here  encountered  in  the  text.    The  words  of  which,  by 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT  STATED. 


405 


a  usual  way  of  speech,  under  an  interrogation  couching  a  po- 
sitive assertion,  are  a  declaration  of  the  impossibility  of  man's 
being  profitable  to  God,  or  (which  is  all  one)  of  his  meriting  of 
God  ;  according  to  the  true,  proper,  and  strict  sense  of  merit. 
Nor  does  this  interrogative  way  of  expression  import  only  a  bare 
negation  of  the  thing,  as  in  itself  impossible,  but  also  a  manifest, 
undeniable  evidence  of  the  said  impossibility ;  as  if  it  had  been 
said,  that  nothing  can  be  more  plainly  impossible  than  for  a 
man  to  be  profitable  to  God ;  for  God  to  receive  any  advantage 
by  man's  righteousness,  or  to  gain  any  thing  by  his  making  his 
ways  perfect :  and  consequently,  that  nothing  can  be  more  ab- 
surd and  contrary  to  all  sense  and  reason,  than  for  a  man  to 
entertain  and  cherish  so  irrational  a  conceit,  or  to  affirm  so  gross 
a  paradox. 

And  that  no  other  thing  is  here  meant  by  a  man's  being  pro- 
fitable to  God,  but  his  meriting  of  God,  will  appear  from  a  true 
state  and  account  of  the  nature  of  merit ;  which  we  may  not 
improperly  define,  a  right  to  receive  some  good  upon  the  score 
of  some  good  done,  together  with  an  equivalence  or  parity  of 
worth  between  the  good  to  be  received  and  the  good  done.  So 
that,  although  according  to  the  common  division  of  justice  into 
commutative  and  distributive,  that  which  is  called  commutative 
be  employed  only  about  the  strict  value  of  things,  according  to 
an  arithmetical  proportion  (as  the  schools  speak),  wThich  admits 
of  no  degrees  ;  and  the  other  species  of  justice,  called  distribu- 
tive (as  consisting  in  the  distribution  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments), admits  of  some  latitude  and  degrees  in  the  dispensation 
of  it ;  yet,  in  truth,  even  this  distribution  itself  must  so  far  fol- 
low the  rules  of  commutation,  that  the  good  to  be  dispensed  by 
wav  of  reward,  ought  in  justice  to  be  equivalent  to  the  work  or 
action  which  it  is  designed  as  a  compensation  of;  so  as  by  no 
means  to  sink  below  it,  or  fall  short  of  the  full  value  of  it. 
From  all  which  (upon  a  just  estimate  of  the  matter)  it  follows, 
that  in  true  philosophy,  merit  is  nothing  else  but  an  instance  or 
exemplification  of  that  noted  saying  or  maxim,  that  one  benefac- 
tion, or  good  turn,  requires  another  ;  and  imports  neither  more  nor 
less  than  a  man's  claim  or  title  to  receive  as  much  good  from  ano- 
ther as  he  had  done  for  him. 

Thus  much  therefore  being  premised,  as  an  explication  of  the 
drift  or  design  of  the  words  (the  words  themselves  being  too  plain 
and  easy  to  need  any  further  exposition),  we  shall  observe  and 
draw  from  them  these  four  particulars  : — 

I.  Something  supposed  or  implied  in  them,  viz.  that  men  are 
naturally  very  prone  to  entertain  an  opinion  or  persuasion,  that  they 
are  able  to  merit  of  God,  or  be  profitable  to  him. 

II.  Something  expressed,  namely,  that  such  an  opinion  or  per- 
suasion is  utterly  false  and  absurd  :  and  that  it  is  impossible  for 
man  to  merit  of  God,  or  be  profitable  to  him. 


406 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXV. 


III.  Something  inferred  from  both  the  former,  to  wit,  that  the 
forementioned  opinion  or  persuasion  is  the  very  source  or  founda- 
tion of  two  of  the  greatest  corruptions  that  have  infested  the  Chris- 
tian church  and  religion.  And, 

IV.  And  lastly,  Something  objected  against  the  particulars  dis- 
coursed of,  which  I  shall  endeavour  to  answer  and  remove  ;  and 
so  conclude  this  discourse. 

Of  each  of  which  in  their  order.  And, 

I.  For  the  first  of  them.  The  thing  supposed  or  implied  in 
the  words* namely,  that  men  are  naturally  very  prone  to  entertain 
an  opinion  or  persuasion,  that  they  are  able  to  merit  of  God,  or  be 
profitable  to  him. 

The  truth  of  which  will  appear  from  these  two  considerations, 
First,  That  it  is  natural  for  them  to  place  too  high  a  value 
both  upon  themselves  and  their  own  performances.  And  that 
this  is  so,  is  evident  from  that  universal  experience,  which  proves 
it  no  less  natural  to  them  to  bear  a  more  than  ordinary  love  to 
themselves;  and  all  love,  we  know,  is  founded  in,  and  results 
from  a  proportionable  esteem  of  the  object  loved :  so  that,  look 
in  what  degree  any  man  loves  himself,  in  the  same  degree  it  will 
follow,  that  he  must  esteem  himself  too.  Upon  which  account  it  is, 
that  every  man  will  be  sure  to  set  his  own  price  upon  what  he  is, 
and  what  he  does,  whether  the  world  will  come  up  to  it  or  no ;  as 
it  seldom  does. 

That  speech  of  St.  Peter  to  our  Saviour  is  very  remarkable,  in 
Matt.  xix.  27,  "  Master,"  says  he,  "  we  have  forsaken  all  and 
followed  thee;  what  shall  we  have  therefore?"  In  which  words 
he  seems  to  be  upon  equal  terms  with  his  Lord,  and  to  expect  no 
more  of  him,  as  he  thought,  but  what  he  strictly  had  deserved 
from  him ;  and  all  this  from  a  conceit  that  he  had  done  an  act  so 
exceedingly  meritorious,  that  it  must  even  nonplus  his  Master's 
bounty  to  quit  scores  with  him  by  a  just  requital.  Nay,  so  far 
had  the  same  proud  ferment  got  into  the  minds  of  all  the  disci- 
ples, that  neither  could  their  own  low  condition,  nor  the  constant 
sermons  of  that  great  example  of  self-denial  and  humility,  whom 
they  daily  conversed  with  :  nor,  lastly  the  correctives  of  a  peculiar 
grace,  totally  clear  and  cure  them  of  it.  And  therefore,  no  won- 
der if  a  principle  so  deeply  rooted  in  nature,  works  with  the  whole 
power  of  nature  ;  and,  considering  also  the  corruption  of  nature, 
as  little  wonder  is  it,  if  it  runs  out  with,  an  extravagance  equal  to 
its  power,  making  the  minds  of  men  even  drunk  with  a  false  intoxi- 
cating deceit  of  their  own  worth  and  abilities.  From  whence  it 
is,  that  as  man  is,  of  all  creatures  in  the  world,  both  the  most  desi- 
rous and  the  most  unable  to  advance  himself ;  so  through  pride 
and  indigence  (qualities  which  usually  concur  in  beggars)  none  is  so 
unwilling  to  own  the  benefactions  he  lives  by,  and  has  no  claim  to, 
as  this  weak  and  worthless  self- admirer,  who  has  nothing  to  be 


THE  DOCTRINE  ON  MERIT  STATED. 


407 


admired  in  him,  but  that  he  can,  upon  such  terms,  admire  himself. 
For  "  naked  came  I  into  the  world,  and  naked  shall  I  go  out 
again,"  ought  to  be  the  motto  of  ever)'  man  when  born,  the  history 
of  his  life,  and  his  epitaph  when  dead  :  his  emptiness  and  self- 
conseiousness  together,  cannot  but  make  him  feel  in  himself  (which 
is  the  surest  way  of  knowing)  that  he  has  indeed  nothing,  and  yet 
he  bears  himself  as  if  he  could  command  all  things  :  at  the  same 
time  low  in  condition,  and  yet  lofty  in  opinion  ;  boasting  and  yet 
depending ;  nay,  boasting  against  Him  whom  he  depends  upon. 
Which  certainly  is  the  foulest  solecism  in  behaviour,  and  two  of 
the  worst  qualities  that  can  be  in  conjunction.  But, 

Secondly,  A  second  consideration,  from  whence  we  infer  this 
proneness  in  men  to  think  themselves  able  to  merit  of  God,  or  to 
be  profitable  to  him,  is  their  natural  aptness  to  form  and  measure 
their  apprehensions  of  the  Supreme  Lord  of  all  things,  by  what 
they  apprehend  and  observe  of  the  princes  and  potentates  of 
this  world,  with  reference  to  such  as  are  under  their  dominion. 
And  this  is  certainly  a  very  prevailing  fallacy,  and  steals  too 
easily  upon  men's  minds,  as  being  founded  in  the  unhappy  predo- 
minance of  sense  over  reason  ;  which  in  the  present  condition 
of  man's  nature,  does  but  too  frequently  and  fatally  take  place. 
For  men  naturally  have  but  faint  notions  of  things  spiritual,  and 
such  as  incur  not  into  their  senses  ;  but  their  eyes,  their  ears, 
and  their  hands  are  too  often  made  by  them  the  rule  of  their 
faith,  but  almost  always  the  reason  of  their  practice.  And 
therefore  no  marvel,  if  they  blunder  in  their  notions  about  God  ; 
a  being  so  vastly  above  the  apprehensions  of  sense  :  while  they 
conceive  no  otherwise  of  him  at  best,  but  of  some  great  king  or 
prince,  ruling  with  a  worldly  majesty  and  grandeur  over  such 
puny  mortals  as  themselves  :  whereupon,  as  they  frame  to  them- 
selves no  other  idea  of  him,  but  such  as  they  borrow  from  the 
royal  estate  of  an  earthly  sovereign,  so  they  conceive  also  of  their 
own  relation  to  him,  and  dependence  upon  him,  just  as  they  do  of 
that  which  passes  between  such  a  sovereign  and  his  subjects ; 
and  consequently,  since  they  find  that  there  is  no  prince  upon 
earth  so  absolute,  but  that  he  stands  in  as  much  need  of  his 
subjects  for  many  things,  as  they  do  or  can  stand  in  need  of  him 
for  his  government  and  protection  (by  reason  whereof  there  must 
needs  follow  a  reciprocal  exchange  of  offices  and  a  mutual  sup- 
ply of  wants  between  them,  rendering:  both  parties  equally 
necessary  to  one  another) :  I  say,  from  these  misapplied  premises, 
the  low,  gross,  undistinguishing  reason  of  the  generality  of  man- 
kind, presently  infers,  that  the  creature  also  may,  on  some 
accounts,  be  as  beneficial  to  his  Creator,  as  such  a  subject  is  to  his 
prince :  and  that  there  may  be  the  like  circulation  of  good  turns 
between  them  :  they  being,  as  they  think,  within  their  compass, 
as  really  useful  to  God,  as  God  for  his  part  is  beneficial  to  them  ; 
which  is  the  true  notion  of  merit,  or  of  being  profitable  to  God. 


408 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXV. 


A  conceit  that  sticks  so  close  to  human  nature,  that  neither  philo- 
sophy nor  religion  can  wholly  remove  it;  and  yet  if  we  con- 
sider the  limited  right  which  the  greatest  prince  upon  earth  has 
over  his  meanest  slave,  and  that  absolute,  boundless,  paramount 
right,  which  God  has  over  the  very  same  things  and  persons, 
which  such  princes  avow  a  claim  to,  and  by  virtue  of  which 
transcendent  right  something  is  God's  which  can  never  be  theirs : 
and  even  what  is  theirs  is  still  by  much  higher  title  his :  I  say, 
if  we  consider  this,  the  absurdity  and  inconsequence  of  all  such 
discourses  about  the  relation  between  God  and  men,  as  are  taken 
from  what  we  see  and  observe  between  man  and  man,  as  governing 
and  governed,  is  hereby  more  than  sufficiently  proved;  and 
yet  as  absurd,  as  fallacious,  and  inconsequent  as  this  way  of  dis- 
coursing is,  it  is  one  of  the  chief  foundations  of  the  doctrine  of 
merit,  and  consequently  of  the  religion  of  too  great  a  part  of 
the  world :  a  religion  tending  only  to  defraud  men  of  their  true 
Saviour,  by  persuading  them  that  they  may  be  their  own.  And 
thus  much  for  the  first  particular,  the  thing  supposed  in  the 
words,  to  wit,  That  men  are  naturally  very  prone  to  persuade 
themselves  that  they  are  able  to  merit  of  God,  or  be  profitable  to 
him. 

I  now  proceed  to  the 

II.  Particular,  in  which  we  have  something  expressed,  namely, 
that  such  a  persuasion  is  utterly  false  and  absurd,  and  that  it  is  im- 
possible for  men  to  merit  of  God,  or  be  profitable  to  him.  And  this 
I  shall  evince  by  showing  the  several  ingredients  of  merit,  and  the 
conditions  necessary  to  render  an  action  meritorious.  Such  as  are 
these  four  that  follow  ;  as, 

First,  That  an  action  be  not  due ;  that  is  to  say,  it  must  not  be 
such  as  a  man  stands  obliged  to  the  doing  of,  but  such  as  he  is 
free  either  to  do,  or  not  to  do,  without  being  chargeable  with  the 
guilt  of  any  sinful  omission  in  case  he  does  it  not.  It  being  no 
ill  account  given  of  merit  by  Spanhemius*  the  elder,  that  it  is 
opus  bonum  indebitum  faciens  prcemium  debitum  ex  indebito.  For 
otherwise,  if  that  which  is  due  may  also  merit,  then,  by  paying  what 
I  owe,  I  may  make  my  creditors  my  debtors  ;  and  every  payment 
would  not  only  clear,  but  also  transfer  the  debt. 

Besides,  that  in  all  the  benefactions  passing  from  Almighty 
God  upon  such  as  serve  him  the  best  they  can,  there  could  be  no 
such  thing  as  liberality  ;  which  can  never  take  place  but  where 
something  is  given,  which  the  receiver  cannot  challenge  ;  nay, 
very  hardly  could  there  be  any  such  thing  as  gift.  For  if  there 
be  first  a  claim,  then,  in  strictness  of  speech,  it  is  not  so  properly 
gift,  as  payment.  Yea,  so  vast  would  be  the  comprehension  of 
justice,  that  it  would  scarce  leave  any  object  for  favour.  But 
God's  grace  and  bounty,  being  so  prevented  by  merit,  would  be 

*  Dub.  Evang.  Part  iii.  page  782. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT  STATED. 


409 


spectators  rather  than  actors  in  the  whole  work  of  man's  salva- 
tion. Nor  would  our  obedience  to  God's  positive  precepts  only, 
but  also  to  his  negative,  sometimes  strike  in  for  their  share  of 
merit  and  claim  to  a  reward.  And  any  one  who  could  plead 
such  a  negative  righteousness,  might  come  and  demand  a  recom- 
pence  of  God  for  not  drinking  or  whoring,  swearing  or  blas- 
pheming; just  as  the  pharisee  did,  for  not  being  as  the  very- 
dregs  of  sinners ;  and  so  vouch  himself  meritorious,  forsooth, 
for  being  a  degree  or  two  short  of  scandalous.  Moreover, 
amongst  men,  it  would  pass  for  an  obligation  between  neighbours, 
that  one  of  them  did  not  rob  or  murder  the  other ;  and  a  suffi- 
cient plea  for  preferment  before  kings  and  governors,  not  to  have 
deserved  the  gibbet  and  the  halter;  which  is  a  poor  plea  indeed, 
when  to  have  deserved  them  proves  oftentimes  a  better.  In 
short,  upon  these  terms  he  who  is  not  the  very  worst  of  villains, 
must  commence  presently  a  person  of  a  peculiar  worth:  and 
bare  indemnity  will  be  too  low  a  privilege  for  the  merit  of  not 
being  a  clamorous,  overgrown  malefactor. 

But  now,  that  all  that  any  man  alive  is  capable  of  doing,  is  but 
an  indispensable  homage  to  God,  and  not  a  free  oblation ;  and  that 
also  such  an  homage  as  makes  his  obligation  to  what  he  does  much 
earlier  than  his  doing  of  it,  will  appear  both  from  the  law  of  nature, 
and  that  of  God's  positive  command.  Of  each  of  which  a  word 
Or  two,  and 

1.  For  the  law  of  nature.  There  is  nothing  that  nature  pro- 
claims with  a  louder  and  more  intelligible  voice,  than  that  he  who 
gives  a  being,  and  afterwards  preserves  and  supports  it,  has  an  in- 
defeasible claim  to  whatsoever  the  said  being  so  given  and  sup- 
ported by  him,  either  is  or  has  or  can  possibly  do.  But  this  is  a 
point  which  I  must  be  more  particular  upon,  and  thereby  lay  a  foun- 
dation for  what  I  shall  argue,  a  fortiori,  concerning  God  himself, 
from  what  is  to  be  observed  amongst  men.  Now  the  right  which 
one  man  has  to  the  actions  of  another,  is  generally  derived  from 
one  or  both  of  these  two  great  originals,  production  or  possession. 
The  first  of  which  gives  a  parent  right  over  the  actions  of  his 
child ;  and  the  other  gives  a  master  a  title  to  whatsoever  can  be 
done  by  his  servant.  Which  two  are  certainly  the  principal  and 
most  undoubted  rights  that  take  place  in  the  world.  And  both  of 
them  are  eminently  and  transcendently  in  God,  as  he  stands  related 
to  men :  and, 

(1.)  For  production.  By  the  purest  and  most  entire  communi- 
cation of  being,  God  did  not  only  produce,  but  create  man.  He 
gave  him  an  existence  out  of  nothing,  and  while  he  was  yet  but 
a  mere  idea  of  possibility  in  the  mind  of  his  eternal  Maker. 
That  one  expression  of  the  psalmist,  "  It  is  he  who  hath  made 
us,  and  not  we  ourselves,"  being  both  a  full  account,  and  an 
irrefragable  demonstration  of  his  absolute  sovereignty  over  our 
persons,  and  incontestable  claim  to  all  our  services :  nor  is  this 

Vol.  I.— 52  2  M 


410 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXV. 


the  utmost  measure  of  our  obligation  to  him,  but  as  he  first  drew 
us  out  of  nothing  and  non-existence,  so  he  ever  since  keeps  us 
from  relapsing  into  it ;  his  power  brought  us  forth,  and  his  provi- 
dence maintains  us.  And  thus  has  this  poor  impotent  creature 
been  perpetually  hanging  upon  the  bounty  of  his  great  Creator, 
and  by  a  daily  preservation  of  his  precarious  being,  stands 
obliged  to  him  under  the  growing  renewed  title  of  a  continual 
creation.    But  this  is  not  all.    There  is  yet, 

(2.)  Another  title  whereby  one  person  obtains  a  right  to  all 
that  another  can  do ;  and  that  is  possession.  A  title,  every  whit 
as  transcendently  in  God  as  the  former;  as  being  founded  in, 
and  resulting  from,  his  forementioned  prerogative  of  a  Creator. 
Nothing  being  more  unquestionable,  than  that  "  the  earth  is  the 
Lord's,  and  the  fulness  thereof:"  as  the  psalmist  declares,  Psalm 
xxiv.  1.  He  is  the  sole  proprietor  and  grand  landlord  of  the 
universe.  And  moreover,  as  all  things  were  made  by  him,  so 
they  were  made  for  him  also;  u  he  made  all  things  for  himself," 
says  the  wisest  of  men,  Prov.  xvi.  4.  He  is  the  original  efficient 
by  which,  and  the  great  and  last  end  for  which  they  are :  for  by 
him  they  began,  and  in  him  they  terminate,  after  which  two  essen- 
tial relations  borne  by  God  to  man  on  the  one  side,  and  obliging 
man  to  God  on  the  other,  can  there  be  any  thing  that  is  good, 
either  in  the  being  or  actions  of  the  latter,  which  can  be  called 
perfectly  his  own  ?  any  thing  which  is  not  entirely  due  to  God, 
and  that  by  a  complication  of  the  most  binding  and  indispensable 
titles?} and  if  so,  how  and  where  can  there  be  any  room  for  such 
a  thing  as  merit  ? 

The  civil  law  tells  us,  that  servants  have  not  properly  a  jus, 
a  right  or  title,  to  any  thing,  by  virtue  whereof  they  can  implead, 
or  bring  an  action  against  their  lord,  upon  any  account  whatso- 
ever: every  such  servant,  as  the  law  here  speaks  of,  being  not 
only  his  master's  vassal,  but  also  part  of  his  possessions.  And 
this  right  our  Saviour  himself  owns,  and  sets  forth  to  us* by  an 
elegant  parable,  couching  under  it  as  strong  an  argument,  Luke 
xvii.  7,  8,  9,  "Which  of  you,"  saith  he,  "having  a  servant 
ploughing,  or  feeding  cattle,  will  say  unto  him  by  and  by,  when 
he  is  come  from  the  field,  Go,  and  sit  down  to  meat?  And  will 
not  rather  say  unto  him,  Make  ready  wTherewith  I  may  sup  ;  and 
gird  thyself  and  serve  me,  till  I  have  eaten  and  drank;  and 
afterwards  thou  shalt  eat  and  drink.  Doth  he  thank  that  servant 
because  he  did  the  things  that  were  commanded  him  ?  I  trow 
not."  Where  we  see,  upon  what  terms  of  right  even  the  most 
diligent  and  faithful  servant  stands  with  his  master;  who  after 
he  had  been  toiling  all  day  in  his  master's  business,  dressing  and 
manuring  his  grounds,  and  watering  them  with  the  drops  of  his 
brow,  comes  home  at  length  hungry  and  tired  (where  if  he  could 
find  no  reward  for  his  hard  service,  yet  one  would  think  that  he 
might  at  least  expect  a  discharge  from  any  further  work,  and 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT  STATED. 


411 


receive  the  present  refreshments  of  his  natural  food) ;  yet  even 
then  his  master  renews  his  employment,  delays  his  repast,  and 
commands  him  to  serve  and  attend  him  at  his  table,  and  with 
weary  limbs  and  an  empty  stomach  to  expect  a  dismission  at  his 
pleasure;  and  all  this  without  so  much -as  any  thanks  for  his 
pains.  In  which  neither  is  the  master  unjust,  nor  the  servant 
injured  :  for  he  did  no  more  than  what  his  condition  obliged  him 
to  ;  he  did  but  his  duty ;  and  duty  certainly  neither  is  nor  can  be 
meritorious.  Thus,  I  say,  stands  the  case  amongst  men  according 
to  the  difference  of  their  respective  conditions  in  this  world. 
And  if  so,  must  not  the  same  obligation,  as  it  passes  between 
God  and  man,  rise  as  much  higher,  as  the  condition  of  a  creature 
founds  an  obligation  incomparably  greater  than  that  of  a  bare 
servant  possibly  can  ?  )  And  therefore,  since  man  stands  bound  to 
God  under  both"  these  titles,  to  wit,  of  production  and  possession, 
now  can  there  be  a  greater  paradox,  than  for  such  a  contemptible, 
forlorn  piece  of  living  dirt  to  claim  any  thing  upon  the  stock  of 
merit  from  him  who  is  both  his  master  and  his  maker  too  ?  |  No, 
the  very  best  of  men,  upon  the  very  best  of  their  sendees,  have 
no  other  plea  before  God  but  prayer ;  they  indeed  may  beg  an 
alms,  but  must  not  think  to  stand  upon  their  terms.  But, 

2.  Not  only  the  law  of  nature,  and  the  reason  of  the  tiling 
itself,  (as  we  have  sufficiently  shown)  excludes  a  man  from  all 
plea  of  merit,  ,but  also  that  further  obligation  lying  upon  him 
and  all  his  services  from  the  positive  law  and  command  of  God, 
equally  cuts  him  off  from  the  same  :  the  known  voice  of  that 
law  being,  "  Thou  shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  him  only 
shalt  thou  serve,"  Matt.  iv.  10.  And  then  for  the  measure  and 
extent  of  that  service,  it  is  to  be  "with  all  the  heart,  and  all  the 
strength,  and  all  the  soul,"  Mark  xii.  30.  Which  one  compre- 
hensive injunction  grasping  in  it  all  that  human  nature  is  able  to 
do,  and  by  consequence  bringing  all  that  can  be  done  by  man 
within  the  compass  and  verge  of  duty,  has  left  no  vacancy  or 
possibility  for  merit  to  take  place  ;  till  it  be  proved  .that  a  man  may 
actually  do  more,  than  "  with  all  his  heart,  and  all  his  strength,  and 
all  his  soul,"  he  is  able  to  do  :  than  which  it  is  impossible,  even 
for  common  sense,  to  conceive  any  thing  more  senseless  and  con- 
tradictious.   And  so  I  proceed  to  the 

Second  condition  required  to  render  an  action  meritorious ; 
and  that  is  that  it  should  really  add  to,  and  better  the  state  of  the 
'person  of  whom  it  is  to  merit.  The  reason  of  which  is,  because  all 
merit,  as  we  have  shown  before,  consists  properly  in  a  right  to  re- 
ceive some  benefit,  on  the  account  of  some  benefit  first  done: 
the  natural  order  of  things  requiring  that  where  a  considerable 
advantage  has  been  received,  something  of  the  like  nature  should 
be  returned.  For  that  otherwise,  if  one  part  of  the  world 
should  be  always  upon  the  receiving  hand,  and  never  upon  the 
restoring,  that  part  would  be  a  kind  of  monstrous  dead  weight 


412 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXV. 


upon  the  other,  and  all  that  was  good  and  useful  to  mankind  would, 
by  an  enormous  disparity,  lean  wholly  on  one  side. 

But  to  bring  the  forementioned  condition  of  merit  home  to  our 
present  purpose,  and  thereby  to  show  how  far  God  is  capable  of  re- 
ceiving from  man,  and  of  man  giving  to  God,  it  may  not  be  amiss 
briefly  to  represent  to  ourselves  what  God  is,  and  what  man  is  ;  and, 
by  consequence,  how  the  case  of  giving  and  receiving  must  stand 
on  God's  part,  and  how  on  man's.    And  here,  in  the 

1st  place,  God  offers  himself  to  our  consideration  as  a  being  in- 
finitely perfect,  infinitely  happy,  and  self-sufficient ;  depending 
upon  no  supply  or  revenue  from  abroad,  but  (as  I  may  so  express 
it)  retreating  wholly  into  himself,  and  there  living  forever  upon 
the  inexhaustible  stock  of  his  own  essential  fulness ;  and  as  a 
fountain  owes  not  its  streams  to  any  poor  adventitious  infusions 
from  without,  but  to  the  internal,  unfailing  plenties  of  its  own 
springs ;  so  this  mighty,  all-comprehending  being  which  we  call 
God,  needs  no  other  happiness,  but  to  contemplate  upon  that 
which  he  actually  is,  and  ever  was,  and  shall  be  possessed  of. 
From  all  which  it  follows,  that  the  divine  nature  and  beatitude 
can  no  more  admit  of  any  addition  to  it,  than  we  can  add  degrees 
to  infinity,  new  measures  to  immensity,  and  further  improvements 
to  a  boundless,  absolute,  unimprovable  perfection :  for  such  a 
being  is  the  great  God,  who  is  one  of  the  parties  whom  we  are 
now  discoursing  of.  Nevertheless,  to  carry  the  case  a  little 
further ;  supposing  for  the  present  that  the  divine  nature  and 
felicity  were  capable  of  some  further  addition  and  increase,  let  us 
in  the 

2nd  place,  cast  our  eye  upon  the  other  party  concerned,  and 
consider,  whether  man  be  a  being  fit  and  able  to  make  this  addi- 
tion ;  man,  I  say,  that  poor,  slight,  inconsiderable  nothing ;  or 
at  best  a  pitiful  something  beholden  to  every  one  of  the  ele- 
ments, as  well  as  compounded  of  them,  and  living  as  an  eleemo- 
synary upon  a  perpetual  contribution  from  all  and  every  part  of 
the  creation  ;  this  creature  clothing  him,  and  another  feeding  him, 
a  third  curing  him  when  sick,  and  a  fourth  comforting  and 
refreshing  him  when  well.  In  a  word,  he  subsists  by  the  joint 
alms  of  heaven  and  earth  ;  and  stands  at  the  mercy  of  every  thing 
in  nature,  which  is  able  either  to  help  or  hurt  him. 

And  is  this  now  the  person  who  is  to  oblige  his  Maker  ?  to 
indent  and  drive  bargains  with  the  Almighty?  Those,  I  am 
sure,  who  in  their  several  ages,  have  been  reputed  most  eminent 
for  their  knowledge  of  God  and  of  themselves  too,  used  to  speak 
at  much  another  rate  concerning  both.  "  My  goodness,"  says 
David,  "  extendeth  not  to  thee,"  Psalm  xvi.  2.  And  again,  "If 
thou  be  righteous,"  says  Elihu  to  Job,  "  what  givest  thou  him  ? 
or  what  does  he  receive  at  thy  hands  ?"  Job  xxxv.  7.  So  that 
St.  Paul  might  well  make  that  challenge  without  expecting 
ever  to  see  it  answered  in  Rom.  xi.  35,  "  Who  hath  first  given  to 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT  STATED. 


413 


him,  and  it  shall  be  recompensed  to  him  again  ?"  For  let  man 
but  first  prove  the  debt,  and  the  Almighty  will  be  sure  to  pay  it. 
But  most  fully  of  all  does  our  Saviour  himself  determine  this 
point  in  that  remarkable  conclusion  of  the  forecired  parable,  in 
Luke  xviii.  10,  where  he  instructs  his  disciples,  "  After  they  had 
done  all  that  was  commanded  them,  to  acknowledge  themselves 
unprofitable  servants;"  that  is  to  say,  such  as  God,  upon  no 
account  whatsoever,  was  or  could  be  at  all  the  better  for.  And 
a  clearer  text  certainly,  and  more  direct  and  home  against  all 
pretence  of  merit,  neither  law  nor  gospel  can  afford. 

Nevertheless  it  must  be  confessed,  that  some  have  found  out 
such  an  exposition  of  it,  as,  if  admitted,  renders  it  of  no  force 
at  all  against  this  doctrine  of  merit.  For  first,  they  absolutely 
cashier  the  literal,  express  sense  of  the  words,  and  in  the  room 
of  it  introduce  a  figure  called  by  the  Greeks  peuo<nj,  which,  to 
diminish  or  degrade  a  thing,  expresses  it  in  terms  representing  it 
much  less  than  indeed  it  is,  as  when  we  say,  a  thing  is  smaller 
than  an  atom,  less  than  nothing,  and  the  like  ;  such  words  are  not 
to  be  understood  literally,  but  import  only,  that  the  thing  spoken 
of  is  very  inconsiderable.  Accordingly,  when  Christ  bids  his 
disciples  after  their  best  and  most  exact  performances  acknow- 
ledge themselves  unprofitable  servants,  we  are  not,  say  these 
expositors,  to  conclude  from  hence,  that  really  they  were  so, 
but  that  Christ  only  read  them  a  lecture  of  humility  and  self- 
abasement  towards  God,  in  speaking  but  meanly  and  lowly  of 
their  own  piety,  how  differently  soever  it  might  deserve  to  be 
valued,  according  to  the  strict  estimate  of  the  thing  itself.  So 
that  by  all  this,  it  seems,  our  Saviour  wTas  only  teaching  those 
about  him  how  to  pass  compliments  upon  Almighty  God,  their 
professing  of  themselves  unprofitable  servants  amounting  to  no 
more  than  if  they  had  told  him,  they  were  his  humble  servants. 
The  meaning  of  which  words,  if  they  have  any  meaning  at  all, 
the  fashionable  custom  of  genteel  lying  will  much  better  account 
for,  than  the  language  of  scripture  (the  word  of  truth)  is  able  to 
do.  But  in  the  mean  time,  what  an  insufferable  perversion  of 
the  written  word  is  it,  to  affix  such  a  sense  to  any  text  of  it,  as 
this  forced  exposition  here  does!  which  manifestly  turns  a  most 
devout  confession  to  Almighty  God  into  a  piece  of  courtship  ;  a 
principal  truth  into  a  mere  trope  or  figure ;  and,  in  a  word,  one 
of  the  highest  duties  of  a  Christian,  into  a  false,  fulsome,  and  at 
best,  an  empty  expression.    And  so  I  pass  to  the 

Third  condition  required  to  render  an  action  meritorious;  and 
that  is,  that  there  be  an  equal  proportion  of  value  between  the  action, 
and  the  reward.  This  being  evident  from  the  foundation  already 
laid  by  us ;  to  wit,  that  the  nature  of  merit  consists  properly  in 
exchange ;  and  that,  we  know,  must  proceed  according  to  a 
parity  of  worth  on  both  sides,  commutation  being  most  properly 
between  things  equivalent     But  now  the  prize  we  run  for,  in 

2  m  2 


414 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXV. 


all  our  religious  performances,  is  no  less  a  thing  than  life  eternal, 
and  a  beatific  enjoyment  of  God  himself  for  ever ;  and  can  any 
man,  not  quite  abandoned  by  his  reason,  imagine  a  few,  weak, 
broken  actions,  a  competent  price  for  heaven  and  immortality? 
and  fit  to  be  laid  in  the  balance  with  an  "  exceeding  and  eternal 
weight  of  glory?"  Is  there  any  thing  in  dust  and  ashes  that 
can  deserve  to  dwell  with  God,  and  to  converse  with  angels?  Or 
can  we,  who  live  by  sense  and  act  by  sense,  do  any  thing  worthy 
of  those  joys  which  not  only  exceed  our  senses,  but  also  trans- 
cend our  intellectuals  ?  Can  we  do  beyond  what  we  can  think^ 
and  deserve  beyond  what  we  can  do?  For  let  us  rate  our  best 
and  most  exact  services  according  to  the  strict  rules  of  morality, 
and  what  man  is  able  to  carry  so  steady  a  hand  in  any  religious 
performance,  as  to  observe  all  those  conditions  that  are  absolutely 
necessary  to  answer  the  full  measures  of  the  law?  No,  this  is 
such  a  pitch  of  acting  as  the  present  strength  of  nature  must  not 
pretend  to.  And  if  not,  how  can  an  action,  short  of  complete 
morality,  set  up  for  meritorious  ? 

The  papists,  we  know,  in  their  disputes  upon  this  subject,  dis- 
tinguish merit  into  that  which  is  de  condigno,  which  merits  a 
reward  upon  terms  of  justice,  and  by  reason  of  the  inherent 
worth  and  value  of  the  work  done  ;  and  that  on  the  other  side  to 
be  de  congriw,  which,  though  it  cannot  claim  a  reward  upon  those 
terms,  and  from  the  precise  worth  and  value  of  the  work  itself ; 
yet  is  such,  that  God  would  not  act  suitably  and  congruously  to 
the  equity  and  goodness  of  his  nature,  if  he  should  not  reward 
it.  These  two  sorts  of  merit,  I  say,  they  hold,  but  are  not  yet 
agreed,  which  of  the  two  they  should  state  the  merit  of  their 
good  works  upon.  For  some  boldly  assert,  that  they  merit  the 
former  way,  to  wit,  by  their  own  inherent  worth  and  value ;  and 
some,  that  they  merit  only  the  latter  way,  that  is,  by  being  such 
as  the  equity  and  goodness  of  God  cannot  but  reward ;  and 
lastly,  others  (as  particularly  Bellarmine)  hold  that  they  merit 
both  ways ;  to  wit,  partly  by  condignity,  and  partly  by  con- 
gruity. 

In  answer  to  which,  without  disputing  any  thing  against  their 
merit  of  condignity  (since  it  more  than  sufficiently  confutes 
itself),  I  utterly  deny  the  whole  foundation  of  their  meritum  de 
congruo,  as  to  any  obligation  on  God's  part  to  reward  our  reli- 
gious service  on  the  score  of  equity ;  since  upon  that  account 
God  can  be  under  no  obligation  to  do  any  thing :  forasmuch  as 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  equity  in  God,  distinct  from  his  justice 
and  mercy;  and  the  exercise  of  his  mercy  must  on  all  hands 
needs  be  granted  to  be  free ;  how  much  soever  that  of  his  justice 
may,  by  some,  be  thought  otherwise. 

Amongst  men,  I  confess,  there  is  such  an  obligation  as  that  of 
equity ;  and  the  reason  is,  because  men  stand  obliged  by  a  supe- 
rior jaw  to  exercise  mercy,  as  well  as  justice ;  which  God  does 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT  STATED. 


415 


not ;  and  therefore  though  there  may  be  such  a  thing  as  a  meritum 
de  congruo  between  man  and  man,  yet  between  God  and  man  (since 
God  is  under  no  obligation  to  show  mercy,  where  his  own  word 
has  not  first  obliged  him)  no  such  merit  can  take  place. 

But  besides,  this  is  not  the  point,  whether  or  no  it  be  congru- 
ous to  the  goodness  of  God,  for  him  to  reward  such  or  such 
actions :  for  there  be  many  thousands  of  things  and  actions  very 
congruous  for  God  to  do,  which  yet  by  his  nature  he  is  not 
obliged  to  do,  nor  ever  will  do ;  so  that  the  bare  congruity  of 
any  thing  or  action  to  the  divine  nature  lays  no  obligation  upon 
God  to  do  it  at  all.  But  the  point  lies  here,  to  wit,  whether  it  be  so 
congruous  to  God  to  reward  the  obedience  and  good  actions  of 
men,  that  it  is  incongruous  to  his  nature  not  to  do  it :  and  this  I 
utterly  deny.  For  if  it  were  incongruous  to  his  nature  not  to  re- 
ward them,  it  would  be  necessary  for  him  to  reward  them ; 
and  then  indeed  merit  must  upon  equal  necessity  take  place. 
But  if  God  be  not  bound  to  reward  every  act,  which  it  may 
be  suitable  or  congruous  for  him  to  reward  (as  we  have  shown 
that  he  is  not)  then  meritum  de  congruo  is  but  merit  equivo- 
cally so  called  ;  and  the  forementioned  division  of  merit  is  not 
a  division  of  a  genus  into  two  several  species,  but  only  a  dis- 
tribution of  an  equivocal  term  into  its  several  significations ; 
and  consequently  to  give  the  name  of  merit  with  respect  to 
God,  to  that  which  is  so  only  de  congruo ,  is  a  mere  trifling  about 
words,  without  any  regard  had  to  the  sense  of  them.  Nor  let 
any  one  here  object  the  frequent  use  of  the  terms  mereri  and 
meritum  by  the  fathers  and  other  ancient  church  writers ;  for 
they  use  them  not  in  a  sense  importing  claim  upon  the  score  of 
strict  justice,  but  only  as  they  signify  the  actual  obtainment  of 
any  thing  from  God  upon  the  stock  of  free  promise,  by  coming  up 
to  the  conditions  of  it :  which  by  no  means  reaches  that  sense 
of  the  word  which  we  have  been  hitherto  disputing  against.  In 
short  therefore  the  question  stands  thus :  Does  this  meritum  ds 
congruo,  from  the  nature  of  the  thing  itself  oblige  God  to  reward 
it,  or  does  it  not  ?  If  it  does,  then  I  am  sure  that  merit  of  con- 
dignity  does  the  same,  and  can  do  no  more ;  and  so  the  distinction 
between  them  is  but  verbal,  and  superfluous.  But  if,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  does  not  oblige  God,  then  I  affirm  that  it  is  not  so 
much  as  merit ;  for  where  there  is  no  obligation  on  one  side,  there 
can  be  no  merit  on  the  other.  To  which  we  may  add  this 
further  consideration,  that  the  asserting  of  such  a  merit  of  con- 
gruity is  altogether  as  arrogant,  as  to  assert  that  of  condignity ; 
forasmuch  as  it  equally  binds  God,  and  brings  him  under  as  great 
a  necessity  of  rewarding,  as  the  other  can ;  and  that,  not  by 
reason  of  his  own  free  word  and  promise  obliging  him  to  it  (of 
which  more  anon),  but  because  of  a  certain  worth  and  value  in- 
herent in  the  work  itself:  which  makes  it  incongruous,  and 
consequently  impossible,  for  God  not  to  reward  it;  since  it  must 


416 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXV. 


needs  be  impossible  for  him  to  do  any  thing  incongruous  to  him- 
self, or  to  any  of  his  attributes. 

From  all  which  it  follows,  that  the  third  condition  required  to 
make  an  action  meritorious,  is  here  failing  also :  wThich  is,  that 
the  excellency  of  the  work  be  commensurate  to  the  value  of  the 
reward.    And  so  I  am  come  at  length  to  the 

Fourth  and  last  condition  or  ingredient  of  merit.  And  that  is, 
that  he  who  does  a  work  whereby  he  would  merit  of  ano- 
ther, does  it  solely  by  his  own  strength,  and  not  by  the  strength  or 
power  of  him  from  whom  he  is  to  merit.  The  reason  of  which  is, 
because  otherwise  the  work  would  not  be  entirely  a  man's  own. 
And  where  there  is  no  property,  there  can  be  no  exchange,  all  ex- 
change being  the  alienation  of  one  property  or  title  for  another. 
And  I  have  all  along  shown,  that  the  nature  of  merit  is  founded  on 
commutation. 

But  now,  how  great  a  hand,  or  rather  what  a  total  influence, 
God  has  in  all  our  actions,  that  known  maxim  jointly  received 
both  by  heathens  and  Christians  sufficiently  demonstrates ; 
namely,  that  "  in  him  we  live  and  move,  and  have  our  being." 
And  so  intimately  and  inseparably  does  this  influence  join  itself 
with  all  the  motions  of  the  creature,  that  it  puzzles  the  deepest 
and  most  acute  philosophers  to  distinguish  between  the  actions  of 
second  causes  and  the  concurrence  of  the  first,  so  as  to  rescue  them 
from  a  downright  identity.  Accordingly,  in  Phil.  ii.  13,  the  apostle 
tells  us,  that  "  it  is  God  who  worketh  in  us  not  only  to  do,  but  also 
to  will,  according  to  his  good  pleasure."  And  if,  in  every  good  in- 
clination as  well  as  action,  God  be  the  worker,  we  must  needs  be 
the  recipient  subjects  of  what  is  wrought ;  and  to  be  recipient  cer- 
taintly  is  not  meritorious. 

In  all  the  actions  of  men,  though  we  naturally  fix  our  eye  only 
upon  some  visible  agent,  yet  still  there  is  a  secret  invisible 
spring,  which  is  the  first  mover  of,  and  conveys  an  activity  to, 
every  power  and  faculty  both  of  soul  and  body,  though  it  be  dis- 
cerned by  neither.  Upon  which  account  it  is  that  St.  Austin  says, 
"that  in  all  that  God  does  for  us,  he  only  crowns  his  own 
works  in  us ;"  the  same  hand  still  enabling  us  to  do,  which  shall 
hereafter  reward  us  for  what  we  have  done.  And  if,  according  to 
these  terms,  and  those  words  also  of  the  spouse  to  the  same 
purpose,  Cantic.  i.  4,  "  Draw  me,  and  I  will  follow  thee,"  our 
coming  to  God  be  from  nothing  else  but  from  nis  drawing  us  to 
himself,  how  can  we  merit  of  him  by  our  following  him,  or  coming 
to  him  ?  For  can  any  one  oblige  me  by  a  present  bought  with 
my  own  money  ?  or  by  giving  me  that  which  I  first  gave  him  ? 
And  yet  the  case  here  is  much  the  same.  For  as  apt  as  we  are  to 
flatter  ourselves,  and  to  think  and  speak  big  upon  this  subject,  yet 
in  truth,  by  all  that  we  do  or  can  do,  we  do  but  return  God 
something  of  his  own.  Much  like  the  rivers,  which  come  rolling 
with  a  mighty  noise,  and  pour  themselves  into  the  sea :  and  yet 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT  STATED. 


417 


as  high  as  they  swell,  and  as  loud  as  they  roar,  they  only  restore  the 
sea  her  own  waters :  that  which  flows  into  her  in  one  place, 
having  been  first  drawn  from  her  in  another.  In  a  word,  can 
the  earth  repay  the  heavens  for  their  influences,  and  the  clouds  for 
that  verdure  and  fertility  which  they  bestow  upon  it  ?  or  can 
dirt  and  dunghills  requite  the  sun  and  the  light  for  shining  upon 
them?  No,  certainly;  and  yet  what  poor  shadows  and  faint 
representations  are  these  of  that  infinitely  greater  inability,  even 
of  the  noblest  of  God's  creatures  to  present  him  with  any  thing 
which  they  were  not  first  beholden  to  him  for !  It  is  clear  there- 
fore, that  since  man,  in  all  his  duties  and  services,  never  had  any 
thing  of  his  own  to  set  up  with,  but  has  trafficked  all  along  upon 
a  borrowed  stock,  the  fourth  and  last  condition  required  to  make  his 
performances  meritorious  utterly  fails  him. 

And  thus  I  have  distinctly  gone  over  the  several  conditions  of 
merit.  As  first,  That  the  meritorious  act  be  not  due.  Secondly, 
That  it  really  add  to,  and  better  the  condition  of  him  from  whom 
it  merits.  Thirdly,  That  there  be  a  parity  of  value  between  the 
work  and  the  reward.  And  fourthly  and  lastly,  That  it  be  done 
by  the  sole  strength  of  him  who  merits,  and  not  by  the  help  and 
strength  of  him  from  whom  he  merits.  These  four,  I  say,  are 
the  essential  ingredients  and  indispensable  conditions  of  merit. 
And  yet  not  one  of  them  all  agrees  to  the  very  best  of  man's  ac- 
tions with  reference  to  almighty  God.  Nevertheless,  in  despite  of 
all  these  deplorable  impotences,  wre  see  what  a  towering  principle 
of  pride  works  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and  how  mightily  it 
makes  them  affect  to  be  their  own  saviours,  and  even  while  they 
live  upon  God,  to  depend  upon  themselves :  to  be  poor  and  proud 
being  the  truest  character  of  man  ever  since  the  pride  of  our 
first  parents  threw  us  into  this  forlorn  condition.  And  thus  I 
have  finished  the  second  and  main  particular  proposed  from  these 
wrords,  and  expressed  in  them,  namely,  that  it  is  impossible  for  men 
by  their  best  services  to  merit  of  God,  or  be  profitable  to  him.  I 
proceed  now  to  the 

Third  particular,  which  exhibits  to  us  something  by  way  of  in- 
ference from  the  two  former ;  to  wit,  that  this  persuasion  of  man's 
being  able  to  merit  of  God,  is  the  source  and  foundation  of  two  of 
the  greatest  corruptions  of  religion  that  have  infested  the  Christian 
church;  and  those  are  Pelagianism  and  Popery.  And, 

First,  For  Pelagianism.  It  chiefly  springs  from,  and  is  resolv- 
able into,  this  one  point,  namely,  That  a  man  contributes  something 
of  his  own,  which  he  had  not  from  God,  towards  his  own 
salvation  ;  and  that  not  a  bare  something  only,  but  such  a  some- 
thing also  as  is  the  principle  and  most  effectual  cause  of  his 
salvation.  Forasmuch  as  that  which  he  receives  from  God,  ac- 
cording to  Pelagius,  is  only  a  power  to  will  and  to  do ;  which  a 
man  may  very  well  have,  and  carry  to  hell  with  him,  as  those 

Vol.  I. — 53 


418 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXV. 


who  go  to  hell  no  doubt  do.  But  that  which  obtains  heaven, 
and  actually  saves  a  man,  is  the  right  use  of  that  power,  and  the 
free  determination  of  his  will ;  which  (as  the  same  Pelagius 
teaches)  a  man  has  wholly  from  himself,  and  accordingly  may 
wholly  thank  himself  for.  So  that  in  answer  to  that  question  of 
the  apostle,  1  Cor.  iv.  7,  Quis  te  discrevit9  "  Who  made  thee  to 
differ  from  another?"  and  that  as  to  the  grand  discrimination  of 
saint  and  reprobate  ?  the  Pelagian  must  reply,  if  he  will  speak  per- 
tinently and  consistently  with  himself,  Why,  I  made  myself  to 
differ,  by  using  the  powers  which  God  gave  me,  as  I  should 
do ;  which  my  neighbour  did  not ;  and  for  that  reason  I  go 
to  heaven,  and  he  to  hell ;  and  as  he  can  blame  none  but  himself 
for  the  one,  so  I  am  beholden  to  none  but  myself  for  the  other. 
This,  I  say,  is  the  main  of  the  Pelagian  divinity,  though  much 
more  compendiously  delivered  in  that  known  but  lewd  aphorism 
of  theirs :  A  Deo  habemus  quod  sumus  homines,  a  nobis  autem 
ipsis  quod  sumus  justi.  To  which  we  may  add  another  of  their 
principles,  to  wit,  That  if  a  man  does  all  that  naturally  he  can  do 
(still  understanding  hereby  the  present  state  of  nature)  God  is 
bound  in  justice  to  supply  whatsoever  more  shall  be  necessary  to 
salvation.  Which  premises,  if  they  do  not  directly  and  unavoid- 
ably infer  in  man  a  power  of  meriting  of  God,  the  world  is  yet 
to  seek  what  the  nature  and  notion  of  merit  is.  Accordingly, 
both  Gelasius  and  St.  Austin,  in  setting  down  the  points  wherein 
the  catholic  church  differed  from  the  Pelagians,  assign  this  for  one 
of  the  chief,  that  the  Pelagians  held  gratiam  Dei  secundum  homi- 
num  merita  conferri.  And  the  truth  is,  upon  their  principles  a 
man  may  even  merit  the  incarnation  of  Christ ;  for  if  there  be  no 
saving  grace  without  it,  and  a  man  may  do  that  which  shall  oblige 
God  in  justice  to  vouchsafe  him  such  grace  (as  with  no  small  self- 
contradiction  these  men  use  to  speak),  then  let  them  qualify  and 
soften  the  matter  with  what  words  they  please  ;  I  affirm,  that  upon 
these  terms  a  man  really  merits  his  salvation,  and  by  consequence 
all  that  is  or  can  be  necessary  thereunto. 

In  the  mean  time,  throughout  all  this  Pelagian  scheme,  we 
have  not  so  much  as  one  word  of  man's  natural  impotency  to 
spiritual  things  (though  inculcated  and  written  in  both  Testa- 
ments with  a  sunbeam),  nor  consequently  of  the  necessity  of 
some  powerful  divine  energy  to  bend,  incline,  and  effectually 
draw  man's  will  to  such  objects  as  it  naturally  resists  and  is 
averse  to  :  not  a  word,  I  say,  of  this,  or  any  thing  like  it  (for 
those  men  used  to  explode  and  deny  it  all  as  their  modern 
offspring  amongst  us  also  do) :  and  yet  this  passed  for  sound  and 
good  divinity  in  the  church  in  St.  Austin's  time  ;  and  within  less 
than  a  hundred  years  since,  in  our  church  too ;  Pelagianism,  and 
Socinianism,  deism,  tritheism,  atheism,  and  a  spirit  of  innovation, 
the  root  of  all  and  worse  than  all,  broke  in  upon  us,  and  by  false 
schemes  and  models  countenanced  and  encouraged,  have  given 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT  STATED. 


419 


quite  a  new  face  to  things :  though  a  new  face  is  certainly  the 
worst  and  most  unbecoming  that  can  be  set  upon  an  old  religion. 
But 

Secondly,  To  proceed  to  another  sort  of  men  famous  for  cor- 
rupting Christianity  more  ways  than  one;"  to  wit,  those  of  the 
church  of  Rome.  We  shall  find,  that  this  doctrine  of  man's 
being  able  to  merit  of  God  is  one  of  the  chief  foundations  of 
popery  also.  Even  the  great  Diana,  which  some  of  the  most 
experienced  craftsmen  in  the  world  do  with  so  much  zeal  sacrifice 
to,  and  make  shrines  for,  and  by  so  doing  get  their  living,  and 
that  a  verv  plentiful  and  splendid  one  too ;  as  knowing  full  well, 
that  without  it  the  grandeur  of  their  church  (which  is  all  their  . 
religion)  would  quickly  fall  to  the  ground.  For  if  there  be  no 
merit  of  good  works,  then  no  supererogation ;  and  if  no  superero- 
gation, no  indulgences  :  and  if  no  indulgences,  then  it  is  to  be 
feared  that  the  silversmith's  trade  will  run  low,  and  the  credit  of 
the  pontifical  bank  be^in  to  fail.  So  that  the  very  marrow,  the 
life,  and  spirit  of  popery  lies  in  a  stiff  adherence  to  this  doctrine : 
the  grand  question  still  insisted  upon  by  these  merchants  being 
Quid  dabitis  ?  and  the  great  commodity  set  to  sale  by  them  being 
merit.  For  can  any  one  think  that  the  pope  and  his  cardinals, 
and  the  rest  of  their  ecclesiastical  grandees,  care  a  rush  whether 
the  will  of  man  be  free  or  no  (as  the  Jesuits  state  the  freedom 
of  it  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Dominicans  and  Jansenists  on  the 
other),  or  that  they  at  all  concern  themselves  about  justification 
and  free  grace,  but  only  as  the  artificial  stating  of  such  points 
may  sometimes  serve  them  in  their  spiritual  traffic,  and  now  and 
then  help  them  to  turn  the  penny  ?  No ;  they  value  not  their 
schools  any  further  than  they  furnish  their  markets ;  nor  regard 
any  gospel  but  that  of  cardinal  Palavicini ;  which  professedly 
owns  it  for  the  main  design  of  Christianity,  to  make  men  as 
rich,  as  great,  and  as  happy,  as  they  can  be  in  this  world.  And 
the  grand  instrument  to  compass  all  this  by  is  the  doctrine  of 
merit.  For  how  elee  could  it  be,  that  so  many  in  that  communion 
should  be  able  to  satisfy  themselves  in  doing  so  much  less  than 
they  know  they  are  required  to  do  for  the  saving  of  their  souls, 
but  that  they  are  taught  to  believe,  that  there  are  some  again  in 
the  world  who  do  a  great  deal  more  than  they  are  bound  to  do, 
and  so  may  very  well  keep  their  neighbour's  lamp  from  going; 
out,  by  having  oil  enough  both  to  supply  their  own,  and  a  com- 
fortable overplus  besides,  to  lend,  or  (which  is  much  better)  to 
sell,  in  such  a  case.  In  a  word,  take  away  the  foundation,  and 
the  house  must  fall ;  and,  in  like  manner,  beat  down  merit,  and 
down  goes  popery  too.  And  so  at  length  (that  I  may  not  tres- 
pass upon  your  patience  too  much)  I  descend  to  the 

Fourth  and  last  particular,  proposed  at  first  from  the  words, 
which  was  to  remove  an  objection  naturally  apt  to  issue  from  the 


420 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXV. 


foregoing  particulars.  The  objection  is  obvious,  and  the  answer 
to  it  needs  not  be  long.    It  proceeds  thus : 

If  the  doctrine  hitherto  advanced  be  true,  can  there  be  a 
greater  discouragement  to  men  in  their  Christian  course,  than  to 
consider,  that  all  their  obedience,  all  their  duties  and  choicest 
performances,  are  nothing  worth  in  the  sight  of  God  ?  and  that 
they  themselves,  after  they  have  done  their  best,  their  utmost, 
and  their  very  all  in  his  service,  are  still,  for  all  that,  useless  and 
unprofitable,  and  such  as  can  plead  no  recompence  at  all  at  his 
hands  ?    This  you  will  say  is  very  hard  ;  but  to  it  I  answer, 

First,  that  it  neither  ought  nor  uses  to  be  any  discouragement 
to  a  beggar  (as  we  all  are  in  respect  of  almighty  God)  to  continue 
asking  an  alms,  and  in  doing  all  that  he  can  to  obtain  it,  though 
he  knows  he  can  do  nothing  to  claim  it.  But 

Secondly,  I  deny  that  our  disavowing  this  doctrine  of  merit, 
cuts  us  off  from  all  plea  to  a  recompence  for  our  Christian  obe- 
dience at  the  hands  of  God.  It  cuts  us  off  indeed  from  all  plea 
to  it  upon  the  score  of  condignity  and  strict  justice:  but  then 
should  we  not  on  the  other  side  consider,  whether  God's  justice 
be  the  only  thing  that  can  oblige  him  in  his  transactings  with 
men  ?  For  does  not  his  veracity  and  his  promise  oblige  him  as 
much  as  his  justice  can?  And  has  he  not  positively  promised 
to  reward  our  sincere  obedience  ?  Which  promise,  though  his 
mere  grace  and  goodness  induced  him  to  make,  yet  his  essential 
truth  stands  obliged  to  see  performed.  For  though  some  have 
ventured  so  far  as  to  declare  God  under  no  obligation  to  inflict 
the  eternal  torments  of  hell  (how  peremptorily  soever  threatened 
by  him)  upon  men  dying  in  their  sins ;  yet  I  suppose,  none  will 
be  so  hardy,  or  rather  shameless,  as  to  affirm  it  free  for  God  to 
perform  or  not  perform  his  promise ;  the  obligation  of  which 
being  so  absolute  and  unalterable,  I  do  here  further  affirm,  that 
upon  the  truest  and  most  assured  principles  of  practical  reason, 
there  is  as  strong  and  as  enforcing  a  motive  from  the  immutable 
truth  of  God's  promise,  to  raise  men  to  the  highest  and  most 
heroic  acts  of  a  Christian  life,  as  if  every  such  single  act  could 
by  its  own  intrinsic  worth  merit  a  glorious  eternity.  For,  to 
speak  the  real  truth  and  nature  of  things,  that  which  excites  en- 
deavour, and  sets  obedience  on  work,  is  not  properly  a  belief  or 
persuasion  of  the  merit  of  our  works,  but  the  assurance  of  our 
reward.  And  can  we  have  a  greater  assurance  of  this,  than  that 
truth  itself,  which  cannot  break  its  word,  has  promised  it  ?  For 
the  most  high  and  holy  One  (as  we  have  shown,  and  may  with 
reverence  speak),  has  pawned  his  word,  his  name,  and  his  honour, 
to  reward  the  stedfast,  finally  persevering  obedience  of  every 
one  within  the  covenant  of  grace,  notwithstanding  its  legal  im- 
perfection. 

And  therefore,  though  we  have  all  the  reason  in  the  world  to 
blush  at  the  worthless  emptiness  of  our  best  duties,  and  to  be 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT  STATED. 


421 


ashamed  of  the  poorness  and  shortness  of  our  most  complete 
actions,  and,  in  a  word,  to  think  as  meanly  of  them  and  of  ourselves 
for  them,  as  God  himself  does,  yet  still  let  us  build  both  our 
practice  and  our  comfort  upon  this  one  conclusion,  as  upon  a 
rock;  that  though,  after  we  have  dope  all,  we  are  still  unprofitable 
servants,  yet  because  we  have  done  all,  God  has  engaged  himself 
to  be  a  gracious  master. 

To  whom  therefore  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due, 
all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  ever- 
more. Amen. 


2  N 


422 


SERMON  XXVI. 

OF  THE  LIGHT  WITHIN  US. 
[Preached  before  the  University  at  Christ  Church,  Oxon,  October  29,  1693.] 

Luke  xi.  25. 

Take  heed  therefore  that  the  light  which  is  in  thee  be  not  darkness. 

As  light  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  glorious  and  useful 
creatures  that  ever  issued  from  the  wisdom  and  power  of  the 
great  Creator  of  the  world  ;  so,  were  the  eye  of  the  soul  as  little 
weakened  by  the  fall  as  the  eye  of  the  body,  no  doubt  the  light 
within  us  would  appear  as  much  more  glorious  than  the  light 
without  us,  as  the  spiritual,  intellectual  part  of  the  creation  ex- 
ceeds the  glories  of  the  sensible  and  corporeal.  As  to  the 
nature  of  which  light,  to  give  some  account  of  it  before  I  proceed 
further,  and  that  without  entering  into  those  various  notions 
of  it  which  some  have  amused  the  world  with ;  it  is,  in  short,  that 
which  philosophers  in  their  discourses  about  the  mind  of  man,  and 
the  first  origins  of  knowledge,  do  so  much  magnify  by  the  name  of 
recta  ratio  ;  that  great  source  and  principle,  as  they  would  have  it, 
both  of  their  philosophy  and  religion. 

For  the  better  explication  of  which  I  must,  according  to  a 
common  but  necessary  distinction  (and  elsewhere  made  use  of  by 
me),  observe  that  this  recta  ratio  may  be  taken  in  a  double 
sense. 

First,  For  those  maxims,  or  general  truths,  which,  being  col- 
lected by  the  observations  of  reason,  and  formed  thereby  into  cer- 
tain propositions,  are  the  grounds  and  principles  by  which  men 
govern  both  their  discourse  and  practice,  according  to  the  nature 
of  the  objects  that  come  before  them  :  or, 

Secondly,  It  may  be  taken  for  that  faculty  or  power  of  the 
soul,  by  which  it  forms  these  maxims  or  propositions,  and  after- 
wards discourses  upon  them.  And  so  no  doubt  it  is  to  be  taken 
here. 

For  propositions  themselves,  as  to  the  truth  of  them,  are 
neither  capable  of  increase  or  decrease,  improvement  or  diminu- 
tion ;  but  the  powers  and  faculties  of  the  soul  are  capable  of 
both ;  that  is,  of  becoming  stronger  or  weaker,  according  as  men 
shall  use  or  abuse,  cultivate  or  neglect  them.  Upon  which  ac- 
count this  recta  ratio  can  be  nothing  else  but  that  intellectual 
power  or  faculty  of  the  soul  which  every  one  is  naturally  en- 
dowed with. 


OF  THE  LIGHT  WITHIN  US. 


423 


To  which  faculty,  as  there  belong  two  grand  and  principal 
offices;  to  wit,  one  to  inform  or  direct,  and  the  other  to  com- 
mand or  oblige ;  so  the  said  faculty  sustains  a  different  <j.*«<h? 
or  denomination,  according  to  each  of  them.  For  as  it  serves  to 
inform  the  soul,  by  discovering  things  to  it,  so  it  is  called  the 
light  of  nature  ;  but  as  it  obliges  the  soul  to  do  this,  or  forbear 
that  (which  it  does  as  it  is  actuated  or  informed  with  those  fore- 
mentioned  general  truths  or  maxims),  so  it  is  called  the  law  of 
nature  :  which  two  offices,  though  belonging  to  one  and  the  same 
faculty,  are  very  different.  For  the  former  of  them,  to  wit,  its 
enlightening  or  informing  quality,  extends  much  further  than  its 
obliging  virtue  does ;  even  to  all  things  knowTable  in  the  mind  of 
man  ;  but  the  latter  only  to  such  things  as  are  matter  of  prac- 
tice, and  so  fall  under  a  moral  consideration.  Besides,  that  this 
obliging  quality  must  needs  also  presuppose  the  enlightening 
quality  as  essentially  going  before  it.  For  as  no  law  can  bind 
till  it  be  notified  or  promulged  ;  so  neither  can  this  faculty  of 
the  soul  oblige  a  man  till  it  has  first  informed  him.  By  which 
we  see,  that  the  light  of  nature,  according  to  the  essential  order 
of  things,  precedes  the  law  of  nature,  and  consequently,  in  strict- 
ness of  speech,  ought  to  be  distinguished  from  it,  how  much 
soever  some  have  thought  fit  to  confound  them.  And  I  doubt 
not  but  it  is  this  which  the  text  here  principally  intends  by  the 
light  within  us. 

Nevertheless,  since  the  word  conscience  takes  in  both,  and  sig- 
nifies as  well  a  light  to  inform,  as  it  imports  and  carries  with  it 
also  a  lawr  to  oblige  us,  I  shall  indifferently  express  this  light  by 
the  name  of  conscience  (as  a  term  equivalent  to  it)  in  all  the  fol- 
lowing particulars  ;  but  still  this  shall  be  with  respect  to  its  in- 
forming rather  than  to  its  obliging  office ;  forasmuch  as  it  is  the 
former  of  these  only  which  is  the  proper  effect  of  light,  and  not 
the  latter.  For  though  conscience  be  both  a  light  and  (as  it 
commands  under  God)  a  law  too ;  yet  as  it  is  a  light,  it  is  not 
formally  a  law.  For  if  it  were,  then  whatsoever  it  discovered  to 
us,  it  would  also  oblige  us  to.  But  this  is  not  so ;  since  it  both 
may  and  does  discover  to  us  the  indifferent  nature  of  many  things 
and  actions  without  obliging  us  either  to  the  practice  or  forbear- 
ance of  them ;  which  one  consideration  alone  is  sufficient  to  set 
the  difference  between  the  enlightening  and  the  obliging  office  of 
conscience  clear  beyond  all  objection. 

And  thus  much  I  thought  fit  to  premise  concerning  the  nature 
of  the  light  here  spoken  of  by  our  Saviour,  and  intended  for  the 
subject  of  the  present  discourse.  Which  light,  as  it  is  certainly 
the  great  and  sovereign  gift  of  God  to  mankind,  for  the  guidance 
and  government  of  their  actions,  in  all  that  concerns  them  with 
reference  to  this  life  or  a  better  ;  so  it  is  also  as  certain,  that  it 
is  capable  of  being  turned  into  darkness,  and  thereby  made 
wholly  useless  for  so  noble  a  purpose. 


424 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVI. 


For  so  much  the  words  of  the  text  import ;  nor  do  they  im- 
port only  a  bare  possibility  that  it  may  be  so,  but  also  a  very 
high  probability  that,  without  an  extraordinary  prevention,  it  will 
be  so.  Forasmuch  as  all  warning,  in  the  very  reason  of  the 
thing,  and  according  to  the  natural  force  of  such  expressions, 
implies  in  it  these  two  things.  First,  some  very  considerable 
evil  or  mischief  warned  against ;  and  secondly,  an  equal  danger 
of  falling  into  it :  without  which  all  warning  would  be  not  only 
superfluous,  but  ridiculous. 

Now  both  these,  in  the  present  case,  are  very  great;  as  will 
appear  by  a  distinct  consideration  of  each  of  them.  And 

First,  For  the  evil  which  we  are  warned  or  cautioned  against ; 
to  wit,  the  turning  of  this  light  within  us  into  darkness.  An 
evil  so  inconceivably  great  and  comprehensive,  that  to  give  an 
account  of  the  utmost  extent  of  it,  would  pose  our  thoughts,  as 
well  as  nonplus  our  expressions.  But  yet  to  help  our  apprehen- 
sions of  it  the  best  we  can,  let  us  but  consider  with  ourselves 
those  intolerable  evils  which  bodily  blindness,  deafness,  stupefac- 
tion, and  an  utter  deprivation  of  all  sense,  must  unavoidably 
subject  the  outward  man  to.  For  what  is  one  in  such  a  condi- 
tion able  to  do  ?  And  what  is  he  not  liable  to  suffer  ?  And  yet 
doing  and  suffering,  upon  the  matter,  comprehend  all  that  con- 
cerns a  man  in  this  world.  If  such  a  one's  enemy  seeks  his  life 
(as  he  may  be  sure  that  some  or  other  will,  and  possibly  such  a 
one  as  he  takes  for  his  truest  friend)  in  this  forlorn  case,  he  can 
neither  see,  nor  hear,  nor  perceive  his  approach,  till  he  finds  him- 
self actually  in  his  murdering  hands.  He  can  neither  encounter 
nor  escape  him,  neither  in  his  own  defence  give  nor  ward  off  a 
blow :  for  whatsoever  blinds  a  man,  ipso  facto  disarms  him  ;  so 
that  being  thus  bereft  both  of  his  sight  and  of  all  his  senses 
besides,  what  such  a  one  can  be  fit  for,  unless  it  be  to  set  up  for 
prophecy,  or  believe  tran substantiation,  I  cannot  imagine. 

These,  I  say,  are  some  of  those  fatal  mischiefs  which  corporal 
blindness  and  insensibility  expose  the  body  to ;  and  are  not 
those  of  a  spiritual  blindness  inexpressibly  greater?  For  must 
not  a  man  labouring  under  this  be  utterly  at  a  loss  how  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  two  grand  governing  concerns  of  life,  good 
and  evil  ?  and  may  not  the  ignorance  of  these  cost  us  as  dear  as 
the  knowledge  of  them  did  our  first  parents?  Life  and  death, 
vice  and  virtue,  come  alike  to  such  a  one ;  as  all  things  are  of 
the  same  colour  to  him  who  cannot  see.  His  whole  soul  is 
nothing  but  night  and  confusion,  darkness  and  indistinction. 
He  can  neither  see  the  way  to  happiness ; — and  how  then  should 
he  choose  it? — nor  yet  to  destruction,  and  how  then  should  he 
avoid  it?  For  where  there  is  no  sense  of  things,  there  can  be 
no  distinction,  and  where  there  is  no  distinction  there  can  be  no 
choice. 

A   man  destitute  of  this  directing  and  distinguishing  light 


OF  THE  LIGHT  WITHIN  US. 


425 


within  him,  is  and  must  be  at  the  mercy  of  every  thing  in 
nature,  that  would  impose  or  serve  a  turn  upon  him.  So  that 
whatsoever  the  devil  will  have  him  do,  that  he  must  do. 
Whithersoever  any  exorbitant  desire  or  design  hurries  him, 
thither  he  must  go.  Whatsoever  any  "  base  interest  shall  pre- 
scribe, that  he  must  set  his  hand  to,  whether  his  heart  goes 
along  with  it  or  no.  If  he  be  a  statesman,  he  must  be  as  willing 
to  sell,  as  the  enemy  of  his  country  can  be  to  buy.  If  a  church- 
man, he  must  be  ready  to  surrender  and  give  up  the  church,  and 
make  a  sacrifice  of  the  altar  itself,  though  he  lives  by  it ;  and,  in 
a  word,  take  that  for  a  full  discharge  from  all  his  subscriptions 
and  obligations  to  it,  to  do  as  he  is  'bid.  WThich  being  the  case 
of  such  as  steer  by  a  false  light,  certainly  no  slave  in  the  gallies  is 
or  can  be  in  such  a  wretched  condition  of  slavery,  as  a  man  thus 
abandoned  by  conscience,  and  bereft  of  all  inward  principles  that 
should  either  guide  or  control  him  in  the  course  of  his  conversa- 
tion. So  that  we  see  here  the  transcendent  greatness  of  the  evil 
which  we  stand  cautioned  against.    But  then, 

Secondly,  If  it  were  an  evil  that  seldom  happened,  that  very 
hardly  and  rarely  befell  a  man,  this  might  in  a  great  measure 
supersede  the  strictness  of  the  caution  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  we 
shall  find,  that  as  great  as  the  evil  is,  which  we  are  to  fence 
against  (and  that  is  as  great  as  the  capacities  of  an  immortal 
soul),  the  greatness  of  the  danger  is  still  commensurate ;  for  it  is 
a  case  that  usually  happens  ;  it  is  a  mischief  as  frequent  in  the 
event,  as  it  is  or  can  be  fatal  in  the  effect.  It  is  as  in  a  common 
plague,  in  which  the  infection  is  as  hard  to  be  escaped,  as  the 
distemper  to  be  cured  :  for  that  which  brings  this  darkness  upon 
the  soul  is  sin.  And  as  the  state  of  nature  now  is,  the  soul  is  not 
so  close  united  to  the  body,  as  sin  is  to  the  soul ;  indeed  so 
close  is  the  union  between  them,  that  one  would  even  think  the 
soul  itself  (as  much  a  spirit  as  it  is)  were  the  matter,  and  sin  the 
form  in  our  present  constitution.  In  a  word,  there  is  a  set 
combination  of  all  without  a  man  and  all  within  him,  of  all 
above  ground  and  all  under  it  (if  hell  be  so),  first  to  put  out  his 
eyes,  and  then  to  draw  or  drive  him  headlong  into  perdition. 
From  all  which,  I  suppose,  we  must  needs  see  reason  more  than 
sufficient  for  this  admonition  of  our  Saviour.  "  Take  heed  that 
the  light  which  is  in  thee  be  not  darkness."  An  admonition 
founded  upon  no  less  a  concern,  than  all  that  a  man  can  save,  and 
all  that  he  can  lose  to  eternity.  And  thus  having  shown  both 
the  vastness  of  the  evil  itself,  and  the  extreme  danger  we  are  in 
of  it ;  since  no  man  can  be  at  all  the  wiser  or  the  safer  barely  for 
knowing  his  danger,  without  a  vigorous  application  to  prevent  it ; 
and  since  the  surest  and  most  rational  preventive  of  it,  is  to 
know  by  what  arts  and  methods  our  enemy  will  encounter  us,  and 
by  which  he  is  most  likely  to  prevail  over  us,  we  will  inquire 
into  and  consider  those  ways  and  means  by  which  he  com- 

Vol.  I. — 54  2n2 


426 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVI 


monly  attempts  and  too  frequently  effects  this  so  dismal  a  change 
upon  us,  as  to  strip  us  even  of  the  poor  remains  of  our  fallen  na- 
ture, by  turning  the  last  surviving  spark  of  it,  this  light  within  us, 
into  darkness. 

For  this  must  be  acknowledged,  that  no  man  living,  in  respect 
of  conscience,  is  born  blind,  but  makes  himself  so.  None  can  strike 
out  the  eye  of  his  conscience  but  himself :  for  nothing  can  put  it  out, 
but  that  which  sins  it  out.  And  upon  this  account  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, that  a  man  may  love  his  sin  so  enormously  much,  as  by  a 
very  ill  application  of  the  apostle's  expression,  even  to  pluck  out 
his  own  eyes  and  give  them  to  it ;  as  indeed  every  obstinate  sinner 
in  the  world  does. 

Our  present  business  therefore  shall  be  (and  that  as  a  completion 
of  what  I  discoursed  formerly  upon  conscience  in  this  place)  to 
show  how  and  by  what  courses  this  divine  light,  this  candle  of  the 
Lord,  comes  first  to  burn  faint  and  dim,  and  so  by  a  gradual  decay 
fainter  and  fainter,  till  at  length  by  a  total  extinction  it  quite  sinks 
to  nothing,  and  so  dies  away.  And  this  I  shall  do,  first,  in  general, 
and  secondly,  in  particular. 

And  first  in  general,  I  shall  lay  down  these  two  observations. 
First,  That  whatsoever  defiles  the  conscience,  in  the  same  degree 
also  darkens  it. 

As  to  the  philosophy  of  which,  how  and  by  what  way  this  is 
done,  it  is  hard  to  conceive,  and  much  harder  to  explain.  Our 
great  unacquaintance  with  the  nature  of  spiritual  immaterial 
beings  leaving  us  wholly  in  the  dark  as  to  any  explicit  knowledge, 
either  how  they  work,  or  how  they  are  worked  upon.  So  that  in  dis- 
coursing of  these  things  we  are  forced  to  take  up  with  analogy  and 
allusion,  instead  of  evidence  and  demonstration.  Nevertheless  the 
thing  itself  is  certain,  be  the  manner  of  effecting  it  never  so  unac- 
countable. 

Yet  thus  much  we  find,  that  there  is  something  in  sin 
analogous  to  blackness,  as  innocence  is  frequently  in  scripture 
expressed  and  set  forth  to  us  by  whiteness.  All  guilt  blackens 
(or  does  something  equivalent  to  the  blackening  of)  the  soul ;  as 
where  pitch  cleaves  to  any  thing,  it  is  sure  to  leave  upon  it  both 
its  foulness  and  its  blackness  together ;  and  then  we  know,  that 
blackness  and  darkness  are  inseparable. 

Some  of  the  ablest  of  the  peripatetic  school,  (not  without 
countenance  from  Aristotle  himself,  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  his 
third  book,  Jtfpi  hold,  that  besides  the  native,  inherent 

light  of  the  intellect  (which  is  essential  to  it,  as  it  is  a  faculty 
made  to  apprehend  and  take  in  its  object  after  a  spiritual  way), 
there  is  also  another  light  in  the  nature  of  a  medium,  beaming  in 
upon  it  by  a  continual  efflux  and  emanation  from  the  great  foun- 
tain of  light,  and  irradiating  this  intellectual  faculty,  together 
with  the  species  or  representations  of  things  imprinted  there- 


OF  THE  LIGHT  WITHIN  US. 


427 


upon.  According  to  which  doctrine  it  seems  with  great  reason 
to  follow,  that  whatsoever  interposes  between  the  mind  and  those 
irradiations  from  God  (as  all  sin  more  or  less  certainly  does) 
must  needs  hinder  the  entrance  and  admission  of  them  into  the 
mind  ;  and  then  darkness  must  by  necessary  consequence  ensue, 
as  being  nothing  else  but  the  absence  or  privation  of  life. 

For  the  further  illustration  of  which  notion,  we  may  observe 
that  the  understanding,  the  mind,  or  conscience  of  man  (which 
we  shall  here  take  for  the  same  thing)  seem  to  bear  much  the 
same  respect  to  God,  which  glass  or  chrystal  does  to  the  light  or 
sun :  which  appears  indeed  to  the  eye  a  bright  and  a  shining 
thing :  nevertheless  this  shining  is  not  so  much  from  any  essential 
light  or  brightness  existing  in  the  glass  itself  (supposing  that 
there  be  any  such  in  it)  as  it  is  from  the  porousness  of  its  body, 
rendering  it  diaphanous,  and  thereby  fit  to  receive  and  transmit 
those  rays  of  light,  which,  falling  upon  it,  and  passing  through  it, 
represent  it  to  common  view  as  a  luminous  body.  But  now  let 
any  thing  of  dirt  or  foulness  sully  this  glass,  and  so  much  of  the 
shine  or  brightness  of  it  is  presently  gone,  because  so  much  of 
the  light  is  thereby  hindered  from  entering  into  it,  and  making  its 
way  through  it.  But  if,  besides  all  this,  you  should  also  draw 
some  black  colour  or  deep  dye  upon  it,  either  by  paint  or  other- 
wise ;  wThy  then  no  brightness  could  be  seen  in  it  at  all,  but  the 
light  being  hereby  utterly  shut  out,  the  glass  or  crystal  would 
shine  or  glister  no  more  than  a  piece  of  wood  or  a  clod  of  earth. 

In  like  manner  every  act  of  sin,  every  degree  of  guilt,  does  in 
its  proportion  cast  a  kind  of  soil  or  foulness  upon  the  intellectual 
part  of  the  soul,  and  thereby  intercepts  those  blessed  irradiations 
which  the  divine  nature  is  continually  darting  in  upon  it.  Nor 
is  this  all,  but  there  are  also  some  certain  sorts  and  degrees  of 
guilt,  so  very  black  and  foul,  that  they  fall  like  a  huge  thick  blot 
upon  this  faculty;  and  so  sinking  into  it  and  setting  within  it, 
utterly  exclude  all  those  illuminations,  which  would  otherwise 
flow  into  it  and  rest  upon  it  from  the  great  Father  of  lights  ;  and 
this  not  from  any  failure  or  defect  in  the  illumination  itself,  but 
from  the  indisposition  of  the  object,  which  being  thus  blackened, 
can  neither  let  in  nor  transmit  the  beams  that  are  cast  upon  it. 

I  will  not  affirm  this  to  be  a  perfect  exemplification  of  the  case 
before  us,  but  I  am  sure  it  is  a  lively  illustration  of  it,  and  may 
be  of  no  small  use  to  such  as  shall  thoroughly  consider  it.  But 
however,  as  I  showed  before,  the  thing  itself  is  certain  and  un- 
questionable, guilt  and  darkness  being  always  so  united,  that  you 
shall  never  find  darkness  mentioned  in  scripture  in  a  moral  sense, 
but  you  shall  also  find  it  derived  from  sin,  as  its  direct  cause,  and 
joined  with  it  as  its  constant  companion  :  for,  by  a  mutual  pro- 
duction, sin  both  causes  darkness,  and  is  caused  by  it.  Let  this 
therefore  be  our  first  general  observation,  That  whatsoever  pol- 
lutes or  fouls  the  conscience,  in  the  same  degree  also  darkens  it 


428 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVI. 


Secondly,  Our  other  general  observation  shall  be  this,  That 
whatsoever  puts  a  bias  upon  the  judging  faculty  of  conscience, 
weakens,  and,  by  consequence,  darkens  the  light  of  it.  A  clear 
and  a  right  judging  conscience  must  be  always  impartial;  and 
that  it  may  be  so,  it  must  be  perfectly  indifferent :  that  is  to  say, 
it  must  be  free  and  disencumbered  from  every  thing  which  may 
in  the  least  sway  or  incline  it  one  way  rather  than  another, 
beyond  what  the  sole  and  mere  evidence  of  things  would  natu- 
rally lead  it  to.  In  a  word,  it  must  judge  all  by  evidence,  and 
nothing  by  inclination. 

And  this  our  blessed  Saviour  with  admirable  emphasis  and 
significance  of  expression  calls  the  "  singleness  of  the  eye,"  in  the 
verse  immediately  before  the  text.  "  If  thine  eye,"  says  he,  "  be 
single,  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  light."  That  is,  nothing 
extraneous  must  cleave  to  or  join  with  the  eye  in  the  act  of  see- 
ing, but  it  must  be  left  solely  and  entirely  to  itself,  and  its  bare 
object ;  as  naked  as  truth,  as  pure,  simple,  and  unmixed  as 
sincerity.  Otherwise  the  whole  operation  of  it  unavoidably  passes 
into  cheat,  fallacy,  and  delusion.  As,  to  make  the  case  yet 
more  particular,  if  you  put  a  muffler  before  the  eye,  it  cannot 
see ;  if  any  mote  or  dust  falls  into  it,  it  can  hardly  see ;  and 
if  there  be  any  soreness  or  pain  in  it,  it  shuns  the  light,  and 
will  not  see.  And  all  this  by  a  very  easy,  but  yet  certain  and 
true  analogy,  is  applicable  to  the  eye  of  the  soul,  the  conscience ; 
and  the  instance  is  verifiable  upon  it,  in  every  one  of  the  alleged 
particulars. 

In  short,  whatsoever  bends,  or  puts  a  bias  upon  the  judging 
faculty  of  conscience,  represents  things  to  it  by  a  false  light ;  and 
whatsoever  does  so,  causes  in  it  a  false  and  erroneous  judgment 
of  things.  And  all  error  or  falsehood  is,  in  the  very  nature  of  it, 
a  real  intellectual  darkness ;  and  consequently  must  diffuse  a  dark- 
ness upon  the  mind,  so  far  as  it  is  affected  and  possessed  with  it. 
And  thus  much  for  our  second  general  observation. 

From  whence  we  shall  now  pass  to  particulars.  In  the  assign- 
ing and  stating  of  which,  as  I  showed  before,  that  sin  in  general 
was  the  general  cause  of  this  darkness,  so  the  particular  causes  of 
it  must  be  fetched  from  the  particular  kinds  and  degrees  of  sin. 

Now  sin  may  be  considered  three  ways,  h  In  the  act.  2.  In 
the  habit  or  custom.  3.  In  the  affection,  or  productive  principle 
of  it.  In  all  which  we  shall  show  what  a  darkening  and  malign 
influence  sin  has  upon  the  conscience  or  mind  of  man ;  and  con- 
sequently with  what  extreme  care  and  severe  vigilance  the  con- 
science ought  to  be  guarded  and  watched  over  in  all  these 
respects.  And, 

1.  For  sin  considered  in  the  single  act.  Every  particular 
commission  of  any  great  sin,  such  as  are,  for  instance,  the  sins  of 
perjury,  of  murder,  of  uncleanness,  of  drunkenness,  of  theft;  and, 


OF  THE  LIGHT  WITHIN  US. 


429 


above  all,  of  undutifulness  to  parents  (which  being  a  thing  so 
much  against  nature,  nothing  in  nature  can  be  said  for  it) ;  these,  I 
say,  and  the  like  capital,  soul-wasting  sins,  even  in  any  one 
single  act  or  commission  of  them,  have  a  strangely  efficacious 
power  to  cloud  and  darken  the  conscience.  Some  of  the  school- 
men are  of  opinion,  that  one  single  act,  if  great  and  extraordinary, 
has  in  it  the  force  of  many  ordinary  and  lesser  acts,  and  so  may 
produce  a  habit :  which  opinion,  how  true  soever  it  may  be  of  an 
act  of  demonstration  producing  a  habit  of  science  in  the  intellect, 
yet  I  cannot  think  it  true  of  any  moral  habits  whatsoever.  For 
it  is  not  to  be  thought,  that  St.  Peter's  denying  and  forswearing  his 
Lord  left  behind  it  a  habit  of  unbelief ;  nor  that  David's  murder 
and  adultery  rendered  him  habitually  murderous  and  adulterous. 
For  no  doubt  it  was  not  so. 

But  this  I  say  that  every  single  gross  act  of  sin  is  much  the 
same  thing  to  the  conscience,  that  a  great  blow  or  fall  is  to  the 
head ;  it  stuns  and  bereaves  it  of  all  use  of  its  senses  for  a  time. 
Thus  in  the  two  forementioned  sins  of  David,  they  so  mazed  and 
even  stupified  his  conscience,  that  it  lay  as  it  were  in  a  swoon, 
and  void  of  all  spiritual  sense  for  almost  a  whole  year.  For  we 
do  not  find  that  he  came  to  himself,  or  to  any  true  sight  or  sense 
of  his  horrid  guilt,  till  Nathan  the  prophet  came  and  roused  him 
up  with  a  message  from  God ;  nor  did  Nathan  come  to  him  till 
after  the  child,  begotten  in  that  adultery,  was  born.  Such  a 
terrible  deadness  and  stupefaction  did  those  two  sins  bring  upon 
his  soul  for  so  many  months  together,  during  which  time,  whatso- 
ever notion  of  murder  and  adultery  David  might  have  in  general ; 
yet  no  doubt  he  had  but  very  slight  and  superficial  thoughts  of 
the  heinousness  of  his  own  in  particular.  And  what  was  the 
reason  of  this  ?  Why,  his  conscience  was  cast  into  a  dead  sleep, 
and  could  not  so  much  as  open  its  eyes,  so  as  to  be  able  to  look 
either  upwards  or  inwards.  This  was  his  sad  and  forlorn  estate, 
notwithstanding  that  long  course  of  piety  and  converse  with  God, 
wThich  he  was  now  grown  old  in.  For  he  had  been  an  early 
practiser  and  an  eminent  proficient  in  the  ways  of  God,  and  was 
now  past  the  fiftieth  year  of  his  age  ;  and  yet,  we  see,  that  one 
or  two  such  gross  sins  dulled  and  deadened  the  spiritual  principle 
within  him  to  such  a  degree,  that  they  left  him  for  a  long  time, 
as  it  were,  dozed  and  benumbed,  blind  and  insensible  ;  and  no 
doubt,  had  not  a  peculiar  grace  from  God  raised  him  up  and  reco- 
vered him,  he  had  continued  so  to  his  life's  end. 

For  this  is  most  certain,  and  worth  our  best  observation ;  that 
whatsoever  carries  a  man  off  from  God,  will,  in  the  natural  course 
and  tendency  of  it,  carry  him  still  further  and  further:  till  at 
length  it  leaves  him  neither  will  nor  power  to  return.  For 
repentance  is  neither  the  design  nor  work  of  mere  nature,  which 
immediately  after  the  commission  of  sin  never  puts  a  man  upon 
disowning  or  bewailing  it ;  but  upon  studying  and  casting  about 


430 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVI. 


him  how  to  palliate  and  extenuate,  and  rather  than  fail,  how  to 
plead  for  and  defend  it.  This  was  the  course  which  Adam  took 
upon  the  first  sin  that  ever  man  committed :  and  the  same  course 
in  the  same  case  will  be  taken  by  all  the  sons  of  Adam  (if  left  to 
themselves)  as  long  as  the  world  stands. 

2.  The  frequent  and  repeated  practice  of  sin  has  also  a  mighty 
power  in  it  to  obscure  and  darken  the  natural  light  of  conscience, 
Nothing  being  more  certainly  true,  nor  more  universally  acknow- 
ledged, than  that  custom  of  sinning  takes  away  the  sense  of  sin  ; 
and,  we  may  add,  the  sight  of  it  too.  For  though  the  darkness 
consequent  upon  any  one  gross  act  of  sin,  be,  as  we  have  shown, 
very  great,  yet  that  which  is  caused  by  custom  of  sinning  is 
much  greater  and  more  hardly  curable.  Particular  acts  of  sin 
do,  as  it  were,  cast  a  mist  before  the  eye  of  conscience,  but 
customary  sinning  brings  a  kind  of  film  upon  it,  and  it  is  not  an 
ordinary  skill  which  can  take  off  that.  The  former  only  closes 
the  eye,  but  this  latter  puts  it  out ;  as  leaving  upon  the  soul  a 
wretched  impotence,  either  to  judge  or  to  do  well :  much  like  the 
spots  of  the  leopard,  not  to  be  changed,  or  the  blackness  of  an 
Ethiopian,  not  to  be  washed  off.  For  by  these  very  things,  the 
Spirit  of  God,  in  Jer.  xiii.  23,  expresses  the  iron  invincible  force  of 
a  wicked  custom. 

Now  the  reason,  I  conceive,  that  such  a  custom  brings  such  a 
darkness  upon  the  mind  or  conscience,  is  this  :  that  a  man  natu- 
rally designs  to  please  himself  in  all  that  he  does;  and  that  it  is 
impossible  for  him  to  find  any  action  really  pleasurable,  while  he 
judges  it  absolutely  unlawful ;  since  the  sting  of  this  must  needs 
take  off  the  relish  of  the  other,  and  it  would  be  an  intolerable 
torment  to  any  man's  mind,  to  be  always  doing,  and  always  con- 
demning himself  for  what  he  does.  And  for  this  cause  a  man 
shuts  his  eyes  and  stops  his  ears  against  all  that  his  reason  would 
tell  him  of  the  sinfulness  of  that  practice,  which  long  custom  and 
frequency  has  endeared  to  him.  So  that  he  becomes  studi- 
ously and  affectedly  ignorant  of  the  illness  of  the  course  he  takes, 
that  he  may  the  more  sensibly  taste  the  pleasure  of  it.  And 
thus,  when  an  inveterate,  imperious  custom  has  so  overruled  r.U  a 
man's  faculties,  as  neither  to  suffer  his  eyes  to  see,  nor  his  ears  to 
hear,  nor  his  mind  to  think  of  the  evil  of  what  he  does ;  that  is, 
when  all  the  instruments  of  knowledge  are  forbidden  to  do  their 
office,  ignorance  and  obscurity  must  needs  be  upon  the  whole  soul. 
For  when  the  windows  are  stopped  up,  no  wonder  if  the  whole  room 
be  dark. 

The  truth  is,  such  an  habitual  frequency  of  sinning  does,  as  it 
were,  bar  and  bolt  up  the  conscience  against  the  sharpest  reproofs 
and  the  most  convincing  instructions ;  so  that  when  God,  by  the 
thunder  of  his  judgments  and  the  voice  of  his  ministers  has  been 
ringing  hell  and  vengeance  into  the  ears  of  such  a  sinner, 
perhaps,  like  Felix,  he  may  tremble  a  little  for  the  present,  and 


OF  THE  LIGHT  WITHIN  US. 


431 


seem  to  yield,  and  fall  down  before  the  overpowering  evidence  of 
the  conviction ;  but  after  a  while,  custom  overcoming  conscience, 
the  man  goes  his  way,  and  though  he  is  convinced  and  satisfied 
what  he  ought  to  do,  yet  he  actually  does  what  he  uses  to  do : 
and  all  this,  because  through  the  darkness  of  his  intellect  he 
judges  the  present  pleasure  of  such  a  sinful  course  an  over- 
balance to  the  evil  of  it. 

For  this  is  certain,  that  nature  has  placed  all  human  choice  in 
such  an  essential  dependence  upon  the  judgment,  that  no  man 
does  any  thing,  though  never  so  vile,  wicked,  and  inexcusable, 
but  all  circumstances  considered,  he  judges  it,  pro  hie  et  nunc, 
absolutely  better  for  him  to  do  it,  than  not  to  do  it.  And  what 
a  darkness  and  delusion  must  conscience  needs  be  under,  while  it 
makes  a  man  judge  that  really  best  for  him,  which  directly  tends 
to,  and  generally  ends  in,  his  utter  ruin  and  damnation !  Custom 
is  said  to  be  a  second  nature,  and  if  by  the  first  we  are  already 
so  bad,  by  the  second,  to  be  sure,  we  shall  be  much  worse. 

3.  Evrery  corrupt  passion  or  affection  of  the  mind,  will  cer- 
tainly pervert  the  judging,  and  obscure  and  darken  the  discerning 
power  of  conscience.  The  affections  which  the  Greeks  call 
and  the  Latins  affectus  animi,  are  of  much  the  same  use  to  the 
soul,  which  the  members  are  of  to  the  body;  serving  as  the 
proper  instrument  of  most  of  its  actions,  and  are  always  attended 
with  a  certain  preternatural  motion  of  the  blood  and  spirits  pecu- 
liar to  each  passion  or  affection.  And  as  for  the  seat  or  foun- 
tain of  them,  philosophers  both  place  them  in  and  derive  them 
from  the  heart.  But  not  to  insist  upon  mere  speculations :  the 
passions  or  affections  are,  as  I  may  so  call  them,  the  mighty  flights 
and  sallyings  out  of  the  soul  upon  such  objects  as  come  before 
it;  and  are  generally  accompanied  with  such  vehemence,  that 
the  Stoics  reckoned  them,  in  their  very  nature  and  essence,  as  so 
many  irregularities  and  deviations  from  right  reason,  and  by  no 
means  incident  to  a  wise  or  good  man. 

But  though  better  philosophy  has  long  since  exploded  this 
opinion,  and  Christianity,  which  is  the  greatest  and  the  best,  has 
taught  us  that  we  may  be  angry,  and  yet  not  sin,"  Eph.  iv.  26 ; 
and  that  godly  sorrow  is  neither  a  paradox  nor  a  contradiction, 
2  Cor.  vii.  10;  and  consequently,  that  in  every  passion  or  affec- 
tion there  is  something  purely  natural,  which  may  both  be  dis- 
tinguished and  divided  too  from  what  is  sinful  and  irregular: 
yet  notwithstanding  all  this,  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  nature 
of  the  passions  is  such,  that  they  are  extremely  prone  and  apt  to 
pass  into  excess,  and  that  when  they  do  so,  nothing  in  the  world  is 
a  greater  hinderance  to  the  mind  or  reason  of  man,  from  making 
a  true,  clear,  and  exact  judgment  of  things,  than  the  passions 
thus  wrought  up  to  any  thing  of  ferment  or  agitation.  It  being 
as  impossible  to  keep  the  judging  faculty  steady  in  such  a  case, 
as  it  would  be  to  view  a  thing  distinctly  and  perfectly  through  a 
perspective  glass,  held  by  a  shaking,  paralytic  hand. 


432 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVI. 


When  the  affections  are  once  engaged,  the  judgment  is  always 
partial  and  concerned.  There  is  a  strong  bent  or  bias  upon  it, 
it  is  possessed  and  gained  over,  and  as  it  were  feed  and  retained 
in  their  cause,  and  thereby  made  utterly  unable  to  carry  such  an 
equal  regard  to  the  object,  as  to  consider  truth  nakedly,  and 
stripped  of  all  foreign  respects ;  and  as  such  to  make  it  the  rigid 
inflexible  rule  which  it  is  to  judge  by ;  especially  where  duty  is 
the  thing  to  be  judged  of.  For  a  man  will  hardly  be  brought  to 
judge  right  and  true,  when  by  such  a  judgment  he  is  sure  to 
condemn  himself. 

But  this  being  a  point  of  such  high  and  practical  importance, 
I  will  be  yet  more  particular  about  it,  and  show  severally,  in 
several  corrupt  and  vicious  affections,  how  impossible  it  is  for  a 
man  to  keep  his  conscience  rightly  informed,  and  fit  to  guide  and 
direct  him  in  all  the  arduous  perplexing  cases  of  sin  and  duty, 
while  he  is  actually  under  the  power  of  any  of  them.  This  I 
know  men  generally  are  not  apt  to  believe,  or  to  think  that  the 
flaws  or  failures  of  their  morals  can  at  all  affect  their  intellectuals. 
But  I  doubt  not  but  to  make  it  not  only  credible,  but  unde- 
niable. 

Now  the  vicious  affections  wrhich  I  shall  single  and  cull  out 
of  those  vast  numbers,  which  the  heart  of  man,  that  great  store- 
house of  the  devil,  abounds  with,  as  some  of  the  principal,  which 
thus  darken  and  debauch  the  conscience,  shall  be  these  three. 

First,  Sensuality.  Secondly,  Covetousness.  Thirdly,  Ambi- 
tion.   Of  each  of  which  I  shall  speak  particularly.  And, 

First,  For  Sensuality,  or  a  vehement  delight  in,  and  pursuit  of 
bodily  pleasures.  We  may  truly  say  of  the  body,  with  reference 
to  the  soul,  what  was  said  by  the  poet  of  an  ill  neighbour,  Nemo 
tarn  prope  tarn  proculque:  none  so  nearly  joined  in  point  of  vi- 
cinity, and  yet  so  widely  distant  in  point  of  interest  and  inclina- 
tions. 

The  ancient  philosophers  generally  holding  the  soul  of  man  to 
be  a  spiritual  immaterial  substance,  could  give  no  account  of  the 
several  failures  and  defects  in  the  operation  of  it,  (which  they 
were  sufficiently  sensible  of),  but  from  its  immersion  into,  and 
intimate  conjunction  with  matter,  called  by  the  Greeks  fay. 
And  accordingly  all  their  complaints  and  accusations  were  still 
levelled  at  this  fay,  as  the  only  cause  of  all  that  they  found 
amiss  in  the  whole  frame  and  constitution  of  man's  nature.  In 
a  word,  whatsoever  was  observed  by  them  either  irregular  or 
defective  in  the  workings  of  the  mind,  was  all  charged  upon  the 
body,  as  its  great  clog  and  impediment.  As  the  skilfullest  artist 
in  the  world  would  make  but  sorry  work  of  it,  should  he  be 
forced  to  make  use  of  tools  no  way  fit  for  his  purpose. 

But  whether  the  fault  be  in  the  spiritual  or  corporeal  part  of 
our  nature,  or  rather  in  both,  certain  it  is,  that  no  two  things  in 
the  world  do  more  rise  and  grow  upon  the  fall  of  each  other,  than 


OF  THE  LIGHT  WITHIN  US. 


433 


the  flesh  and  the  spirit :  they  being  like  a  kind  of  balance  in  the 
hand  of  nature,  so  that  as  one  mounts  up,  the  other  still  sinks 
down ;  and  the  high  estate  of  the  body  seldom  or  never  fails  to 
be  the  low,  declining  estate  of  the  soul.  Which  great  contrariety 
and  discord  between  them,  the  apostle  describes,  as  well  as  words 
can  do,  Gal.  v.  7,  "  The  flesh,"  says  he,  "  lusteth  against  the 
spirit,  and  the  spirit  lusteth  against  the  flesh ;  and  these  two  are 
contrary;''  like  two  mighty  princes  whose  territories  join,  they  are 
always  encroaching  and  warring  upon  one  another.  And  as  it 
most  commonly  falls  out,  that  the  worst  cause  has  the  best  success ; 
so  when  the  flesh  and  the  spirit  come  to  a  battle,  it  is  seldom  but 
the  flesh  comes  off  victorious.  And  therefore  the  same  great 
apostle,  who  so  constantly  "  exercised  himself  to  keep  a  con- 
science void  of  offence,"  did  as  constantly  and  severely  exercise 
himself  "  to  keep  under  his  body,  and  bring  it  into  subjection," 
1  Cor.  ix.  27.  And  the  same,  in  all  ages,  has  been  the  judgment 
and  practice  of  all  such  as  have  had  any  experience  in  the  ways 
of  God  and  the  true  methods  of  religion.  For  all  bodily  plea- 
sure dulls  and  weakens  the  operations  of  the  mind,  even  upon  a 
natural  account,  and  much  more  upon  a  spiritual.  Now  the 
pleasures  which  chiefly  affect,  or  rather  bewitch  the  body,  and 
by  so  doing  become  the  pest  and  poison  of  the  nobler  intellectual 
part  of  man,  are  those  false  and  fallacious  pleasures  of  lust  and 
intemperance.    Of  each  of  which  severally :  and 

1.  For  lust  Nothing  does  or  can  darken  the  mind  or  con- 
science of  man  more:  nay,  it  has  a  peculiar  efficacy  this  way, 
and  for  that  cause  may  justly  be  ranked  amongst  the  very  powers 
of  darkness :  it  being  that  which,  as  naturalists  observe,  strikes 
at  the  proper  seat  of  the  understanding,  the  brain:  something 
of  that  "  blackness  of  darkness"  mentioned  in  the  thirteenth  of 
St.  Jude,  seeming  to  be  of  the  very  nature  as  well  as  punish- 
ment of  this  vice. 

Nor  does  only  the  reason  of  the  thing  itself,  but  also  the 
examples  of  such  as  have  been  possessed  with  it,  demonstrate  as 
much. 

For  had  not  Samson,  think  we,  an  intolerable  darkness  and 
confusion  upon  his  understanding,  while  he  went  roving  after 
every  strumpet  in  that  brutish  manner  that  he  did?  Was  it  not 
the  eye  of  his  conscience  which  his  Delilah  first  put  out,  and  so 
of  a  judge  of  Israel  rendered  himself  really  a  judgment  upon 
them  ?  And  when  the  two  angels,  as  we  read  in  Gen.  xix., 
struck  those  monsters,  the  men  of  Sodom,  with  blindness,  had  not 
their  own  detestable  lust  first  stricken  them  with  a  greater?  Or 
could  Herod  have  ever  thought  himself  obliged  by  the  religion 
of  an  oath  to  have  murdered  the  Baptist,  had  not  his  lust  and 
his  Herodias  imprisoned  and  murdered  his  conscience  first?  For 
surely  the  common  light  of  nature,  could  not  but  teach  him,  that 
no  oath  or  vow  whatsoever  could  warrant  the  greatest  prince 

Vol.  I. — 55  2  0 


434 


DR.  SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVI. 


upon  earth  to  take  away  the  life  of  an  innocent  person.  But  it 
seems  his  besotted  conscience  having  broken  through  the  seventh 
commandment,  the  sixth  stood  too  near  it  to  be  safe  too  long:  and 
therefore  his  two  great  casuists,  the  devil  and  his  Herodias  (the 
wrorse  devil  of  the  two),  having  allowed  him  to  lie  and  wallow  in 
adultery  so  long,  easily  persuaded  him  that  the  same  salvo  might 
be  found  out  for  murder  also.  So  that  it  was  his  lust  obstinately 
continued  in,  which  thus  darkened  and  deluded  his  conscience ; 
and  the  same  will,  no  doubt,  darken  and  delude,  and  in  the  end 
extinguish  the  conscience  of  any  man  breathing,  who  shall  sur- 
render himself  up  to  it.  The  light  within  him  shall  grow  every 
day  less  and  less,  and  at  length  totally  and  finally  go  out,  and  that 
in  a  stink  too.  So  hard,  or  rather  utterly  unfeasible  is  it 
for  men  to  be  zealous  votaries  of  the  blind  god,  without  losing 
their  eyes  in  his  service,  nd  it  is  well  if  their  noses  do  not  follow. 
From  all  which  it  appears  what  a  paradox  it  is  in  morals,  for 
any  one  under  the  dominion  of  his  lust,  to  think  to  have  a  right 
judgment  in  things  relating  to  the  state  of  his  soul.  And  the  same, 
in  the 

2.  Place,  holds  equally  in  that  other  branch  of  sensuality, 
intemperance;  whereupon  we  find  them  both  joined  together  by 
the  prophet,  Hosea  iv.  11,  "Whoredom,"  says  he,  "and  wine 
take  away  the  heart ;"  that  is,  according  to  the  language  of  holy 
writ,  a  man's  judging  and  discerning  abilities.  And  therefore, 
whosoever  would  preserve  these  faculties  (especially  as  to  their 
discernment  of  spiritual  objects)  quick  and  vigorous,  must  be 
sure  to  keep  the  upper  region  of  his  soul  clear  and  serene ;  which 
the  fumes  of  meat  and  drink  luxuriously  taken  in,  will  never 
suffer  it  to  be.  We  know  the  method  which  this  high  and  exact 
pattern  of  spiritual  prudence,  St.  Paul,  took  to  keep  the  great 
sentinel  of  his  soul,  his  conscience,  always  vigilant  and  circum- 
spect. It  was  by  a  constant  and  severe  temperance,  heightened 
with  frequent  watchings  and  fastings,  as  he  himself  tells  us, 
2  Cor.  xi.  27,  "  In  watchings  often,  in  fastings  often,  &c.  This 
was  the  discipline  which  kept  his  senses  exercised  to  a  sure  and 
exquisite  discrimination  of  good  and  evil ;  and  made  the  lamp 
within  him  shine  always  with  a  bright  and  a  triumphant  flame. 

But  gluttony,  and  all  excess,  either  in  eating  or  drinking, 
strangely  clouds  and  dulls  the  intellectual  powers ;  and  then  it 
is  not  to  be  expected  that  the  conscience  should  bear  up,  when 
the  understanding  is  drunk  down.  An  epicure's  practice 
naturally  disposes  a  man  to  an  epicure's  principles  ;  that  is,  to  an 
equal  looseness  and  dissolution  in  both  :  and  he  who  makes  his 
belly  his  business,  will  quickly  come  to  have  a  conscience  of  as 
large  a  swallow  as  his  throat  ;  of  which  there  want  not  several 
scandalous  and  deplorable  instances.  Loads  of  meat  and  drink 
are  fit  for  none  but  a  beast  of  burden  to  bear :  and  he  is  much 
the  greater  beast  of  the  two,  who  carries  his  burden  in  his  belly, 


OF  THE  LIGHT  WITHIN  US. 


435 


than  he  who  carries  it  upon  his  back.  On  the  contrary,  nothing 
is  so  great  a  friend  to  the  mind  of  man,  as  abstinence  ;  it  strength- 
ens the  memory,  clears  the  apprehension,  and  sharpens  the  judg- 
ment, and  in  a  word,  gives  reason  its  full  scope  of  acting ;  and 
when  reason  has  that,  it  is  always  a  diligent  and  faithful  hand- 
maid to  conscience.  And  therefore,  where  men  look  no  further 
than  mere  nature  (as  many  do  not),  let  no  man  expect  to  keep 
his  gluttony  and  his  parts,  his  drunkenness  and  his  wit,  his  revel- 
lings  and  his  judgment,  and  much  less  his  conscience  together. 
For  neither  grace  nor  nature  will  have  it  so.  It  is  an  utter  con- 
tradiction to  the  methods  of  both  :  "Who  hath  woe?  who  hath 
sorrow  ?  who  hath  contentions  ?  who  hath  babbling  ?  who  hath 
wounds  without  cause  ?  who  hath  redness  of  eyes?"  says  Solomon, 
Prov.  xxiii.  29.  Which  question  he  himself  presently  answers 
in  the  next  verse,  "  They  who  tarry  long  at  the  wine,  they  who 
seek  after  mixed  wine."  So  say  I,  who  has  a  stupid  intellect,  a 
broken  memory,  and  a  blasted  wit,  and  (which  is  worse  than  all) 
a  blind  and  benighted  conscience,  but  the  intemperate  and 
luxurious,  the  epicure  and  the  smell-feast  ?  So  impossible  is  it 
for  a  man  to  turn  sot  without  making  himself  a  blockhead  too. 
I  know  this  is  not  always  the  present  effect  of  these  courses,  but 
at  long  run  it  will  infallibly  be  so  ;  and  time  and  luxury  together 
will  as  certainly  change  the  inside,  as  it  does  the  outside  of  the 
best  heads  whatsoever ;  and  much  more  of  such  heads  as  are 
strong  for  nothing  but  to  bear  drink :  concerning  which,  it  ever 
was,  and  is,  and  will  be  a  sure  observation,  that  such  as  are  ablest 
at  the  barrel,  are  generally  weakest  at  the  book.  And  thus 
much  for  the  first  great  darkener  of  man's  mind,  sensuality ;  and 
that,  in  both  the  branches  of  it,  lust  and  intemperance. 

Secondly,  Another  vicious  affection,  which  clouds  and  darkens 
the  conscience,  is  covetousness.  Concerning  which  it  may  truly 
be  affirmed,  that  of  all  the  vices  incident  to  human  nature,  none 
so  powerfully  and  peculiarly  carries  the  soul  downwards  as  covet- 
ousness does.  It  makes  it  all  earth  and  dirt,  burying  that  noble 
thing  which  can  never  die.  So  that  while  the  body  is  above 
ground,  the  soul  is  under  it;  and  therefore  must  needs  be  in  a 
state  of  darkness,  while  it  converses  in  the  regions  of  it. 

How  mightily  this  vice  darkens  and  debases  the  mind,  scripture 
instances  do  abundantly  show.  When  Moses  would  assign  the 
proper  qualifications  of  a  judge  (which  office  certainly  calls  for 
the  quickest  apprehension  and  the  solidest  judgment  that  the 
mind  of  man  is  well  capable  of),  Deut.  xvi.  9,  Thou  shalt  not," 
says  he,  "  take  a  gift."  But  why?  he  presently  adds  the  reason  ; 
"because  a  gift,"  says  he,  "blinds  the  eyes  of  the  wise."  And 
no  wonder,  for  it  perverts  their  will ;  and  then,  who  so  blind  as 
the  man  who  resolves  not  to  see  ?  gold,  it  seems,  being  but  a 
very  bad  help  and  cure  of  the  eyes  in  such  cases.  In  like  man- 
ner, when  Samuel  would  set  the  credit  of  his  integrity  clear 


436 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVI. 


above  all  the  aspersions  of  envy  and  calumny  itself,  1  Sam.  xii. 
3,  "  Of  whose  hands,"  says  he,  u  have  I  received  a  bribe  to  blind 
my  eyes  therewith?"  implying  thereby,  that  for  a  man  to  be 
gripe-handed  and  clear-sighted  too  was  impossible.  And  again, 
Eccl.  vii.  7,  "A  gift,"  says  the  wise  man,  "  destroyeth  the 
heart ;"  that  is,  as  we  have  shown  already,  the  judging  and  dis- 
cerning powers  of  the  soul.  By  all  which  we  see,  that  in  the 
judgment  of  some  of  the  wisest  and  greatest  men  that  ever  lived, 
such  as  Moses,  Samuel,  Solomon  himself,  covetousness  baffles 
and  befools  the  mind,  blinds  and  confounds  the  reasoning  faculty, 
and  that,  not  only  in  ordinary  persons,  but  even  in  the  ablest,  the 
wisest,  and  most  sagacious.  And  to  give  you  one  proof,  above 
all,  of  the  peculiar  blinding  power  of  this  vice,  there  is  not  the 
most  covetous  wretch  breathing,  who  does  so  much  as  see  or  per- 
ceive that  he  is  covetous. 

For  the  truth  is,  preach  to  the  conscience  of  a  covetous  person 
(if  he  may  be  said  to  have  any)  with  the  tongue  of  men  and  an- 
gels, and  tell  him  of  the  vanity  of  the  world,  of  treasure  in 
heaven,  and  of  the  necessity  of  being  rich  toward  God,  and 
liberal  to  his  poor  brother ;  and  it  is  all  but  flat,  insipid,  and 
ridiculous  stuff  to  him,  who  neither  sees,  nor  feels,  nor  suffers 
any  thing  to  pass  into  his  heart,  but  through  his  hands.  You 
must  preach  to  such  a  one  of  bargain  and  sale,  profits  and  per- 
quisites, principal  and  interest,  use  upon  use ;  and  if  you  can 
persuade  him  that  godliness  is  gain  in  his  own  sense,  perhaps  you 
may  do  something  with  him  ;  otherwise,  though  you  edge  every 
word  you  speak  with  reason  and  religion,  evidence  and  demon- 
stration, you  shall  never  affect,  nor  touch,  nor  so  much  as  reach 
his  conscience  ;  for  it  is  kept  sealed  up  in  a  bag  under  lock  and 
key,  and  you  cannot  come  at  it. 

And  thus  much  for  the  second  base  affection  that  blinds  the 
mind  of  man,  which  is  covetousness.  A  thing  directly  contrary 
to  the  very  spirit  of  Christianity:  which  is  a  free,  a  large,  and 
an  open  spirit;  a  spirit  open  to  God  and  man,  and  always  carry- 
ing charity  in  one  hand  and  generosity  in  the  other. 

Thirdly,  The  third  and  last  vile  affection  which  I  shall  men- 
tion, as  having  the  same  darkening  effect  upon  the  mind  or  con- 
science, is  ambition.  For  as  covetousness  dulls  the  mind  by 
pressing  it  down  too  much  below  itself,  so  ambition  dazzles  it  by 
lifting  it  up  as  much  above  itself ;  but  both  of  them  are  sure  to 
darken  the  light  of  it.  For  if  you  either  look  too  intently  down 
a  deep  precipice  upon  a  thing  at  an  extreme  distance  below  you, 
or  with  the  same  earnestness  fix  your  eye  upon  something  at  too 
great  a  height  above  you ;  in  both  cases  you  will  find  a  vertigo 
or  giddiness.  And  where  there  is  a  giddiness  in  the  head,  there 
will  be  always  a  mist  before  the  eyes.  And  thus,  no  doubt,  it 
was  only  an  ambitious  aspiring  after  high  things,  which  not  long 
since  caused  such  a  woful,  scandalous  giddiness  in  some  men's 


OF  THE  LIGHT  WITHIN  US. 


437 


consciences  and  made  them  turn  round  and  round  from  this  to  that, 
and  from  that  to  this,  till  at  length  they  knew  not  what  bottom  to 
fix  upon.  And  this,  in  my  opinion,  is  a  case  that  admits  of  no 
vindication. 

Pride,  we  know,  (which  is  always  cousin-german  to  am- 
bition), is  commonly  reckoned  the  forerunner  of  a  fall.  It  was 
the  devil's  sin  and  the  devil's  ruin,  and  has  been  ever  since  the 
devil's  stratagem  ;  who  like  an  expert  wrestler  usually  gives  a 
man  a  lift  before  he  gives  him  a  throw.  But  how  does  he  do 
this  ?  Why,  by  first  blinding  him  with  ambition ;  and  when  a 
man  either  cannot  or  will  not  mind  the  ground  he  stands  upon,  as 
a  thing,  forsooth,  too  much  below  him,  he  is  then  easily  justled 
down,  and  thrust  headlong  into  the  next  ditch.  The  truth  is,  in 
this  case  men  seem  to  ascend  to  a  high  station,  just  as  they  use  to 
leap  down  a  very  great  steep :  in  both  cases  they  shut  their  eyes 
first,  for  in  both  the  danger  is  very  dreadful,  and  the  way  to  ven- 
ture upon  it  is  not  to  see  it. 

Yea,  so  fatally  does  this  towering,  aspiring  humour  intoxicate 
and  impose  upon  men's  minds,  that  when  the  devil  stands  bobbing 
and  tantalizing  their  gaping  hopes  with  some  preferment  in  church 
or  state,  they  shall  do  the  basest,  the  vilest,  and  most  odious 
things  imaginable ;  and  that  not  only  in  defiance  of  conscience, 
but,  which  is  yet  more  impudent  and  intolerable,  shall  even  allege 
conscience  itself  as  the  very  reason  for  the  doing  them :  so 
that  such  WTetches  shall  out  of  mere  conscience,  forsooth,  betray 
the  country  that  bred,  and  the  church  that  baptized  them,  and 
having  first  practised  a  dispensing  power  upon  all  law  within 
them,  shall  help  to  let  the  same  loose  upon  all  laws  without  them 
too.  And  when  they  have  done,  shall  wipe  their  mouths,  and  with 
as  boon  a  grace  and  as  bold  a  front  look  the  world  in  the  face,  as 
if  they  expected  thanks  for  such  villanies  as  a  modest  malefactor 
would  scarce  presume  to  expect  a  pardon  for. 

But  as  for  these  ambitious  animals,  who  could  thus  sell  their 
credit  and  their  conscience,  wade  through  thick  and  thin,  and 
break  through  all  that  is  sacred  and  civil,  only  to  make  themselves 
high  and  great,  I  shall  say  no  more  of  them  but  this,  that  instead 
of  being  advanced  to  what  they  so  much  desired,  it  is  well  for 
them  that  they  have  not  been  advanced  to  what  they  so  highly 
deserved.  For  this,  I  am  sure  of,  that  neither  papists  nor  fana- 
tics (both  of  them  our  mortal,  implacable  enemies)  can  conceive 
a  prayer  more  fully  and  effectually  for  their  own  interest  than  this, 
'that  the  church  of  England  may  never  want  store  of  ambi- 
tious, time-serving  men.'  And  if  God  should  in  his  anger  to 
this  poor  church  and  nation,  grant  them  this,  they  doubt  not  but  in 
a  little  time  to  grant,  or  rather  give  themselves  the  rest.  Let  this 
therefore  be  fixed  upon  as  a  certain  maxim,  that  ambition  first 
blinds  the  conscience,  and  then  leads  the  man  whither  it  will,  and 
that  is,  in  the  direct  course  of  it,  to  the  devil. 

2o2 


438 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVI. 


1  know  there  are  many  more  irregular  and  corrupt  affection 
belonging  to  the  mind  of  man,  and  all  of  them  in  their  degree 
apt  to  darken  and  obscure  the  light  of  conscience.  Such  as  are 
wrath  and  revenge,  envy  and  malice,  fear  and  despair,  with  many 
such  others,  even  too  many  a  great  deal,  to  be  crowded  into  one 
hour's  discourse.  But  the  three  forementioned,  which  we  have 
been  treating  of,  are,  doubtless,  the  most  predominant,  the  most 
potent  in  their  influence,  and  most  pernicious  in  their  effect :  as 
answering  to  those  three  principal  objects,  which,  of  all  others, 
do  the  most  absolutely  command  and  domineer  over  the  desires 
of  men ;  to  wit,  the  pleasures  of  the  world  working  upon  their 
sensuality ;  the  profits  of  the  world  upon  their  covetousness ; 
and  lastly,  the  honours  of  it  upon  their  ambition.  Which  three 
powerful  incentives,  meeting  with  these  three  violent  affections, 
are,  as  it  were,  the  great  trident  in  the  tempter's  hand,  by  which 
he  strikes  through  the  very  hearts  and  souls  of  men ;  or  as  a 
mighty  threefold  cord,  by  which  he  first  hampers,  and  then 
draws  the  whole  world  after  him,  and  that  with  such  a  rapid 
swing,  such  an  irresistible  fascination  upon  the  understandings,  as 
well  as  appetites  of  men,  that  as  God  said  heretofore,  aLet 
there  be  light,  and  there  was  light :"  so  this  proud  rival  of  his 
Creator,  and  overturner  of  the  creation,  is  still  saying  in  defiance 
of  him,  Let  there  be  darkness,  and  accordingly  there  is  darkness  ; 
darkness  upon  the  mind  and  reason ;  darkness  upon  the  judgment 
and  conscience  of  all  mankind.  So  that  hell  itself  seems  to  be 
nothing  else  but  the  devil's  finishing  this  his  great  work,  and  the 
consummation  of  that  darkness  in  another  world,  which  he  had  so 
fatally  begun  in  this. 

And  now,  to  sum  up  briefly  the  foregoing  particulars,  you 
have  heard,  of  what  vast  and  infinite  moment  it  is  to  have  a 
clear,  impartial,  and  right  judging  conscience ;  such  a  one  as  a 
man  may  reckon  himself  safe  in  the  directions  of,  as  of  a  guide 
that  will  always  tell  him  truth,  and  truth  without  authority ;  and 
that  the  eye  of  conscience  may  be  always  thus  quick  and  lively,  let 
constant  use  be  sure  to  keep  it  constantly  open:  and  thereby 
ready  and  prepared  to  admit  and  let  in  those  heavenly  beams, 
which  are  always  streaming  forth  from  God  upon  minds  fitted  to 
receive  them. 

And  to  this  purpose,  let  a  man  fly  from  every  thing  which 
may  leave  either  a  foulness  or  a  bias  upon  it ;  for  the  first  will 
blacken,  and  the  other  will  distort  it,  and  both  be  sure  to  darken 
it.  Particularly  let  him  dread  every  gross  act  of  sin ;  for  one 
great  stab  may  as  certainly  and  speedily  destroy  life  as  forty 
lesser  wounds.  Let  him  also  carry  a  jealous  eye  over  every 
growing  habit  of  sin ;  for  custom  is  an  over-match  to  nature, 
and  seldom  conquered  by  grace ;  and  above  all,  let  him  keep 
aloof  from  all  commerce  or  fellowship  with  any  vicious  and  base 
affection ;  especially  from  all  sensuality,  which  is  not  only  the 


OF  THE  LIGHT  WITHIN  US. 


439 


dirt,  but  the  black  dirt,  which  the  devil  throws  upon  the  souls  of 
men ;  accordingly  let  him  keep  himself  untouched  with  the  hell- 
ish, unhallowed  heats  of  lust,  and  the  noisome  steams  and  ex- 
halations of  intemperance,  which  never  fail  to  leave  a  brutish 
dulness  and  infatuation  behind  them.  Likewise,  let  him  bear 
himself  above  that  sordid  and  low  thing,  that  utter  contradiction 
to  all  greatness  of  mind,  covetousness ;  let  him  disenslave  him- 
self from  the  pelf  of  the  world,  from  that  amor  sceleratus  haben- 
di ;  for  all  love  has  something  of  blindness  attending  it ;  but  the 
love  of  money  especially.  And  lastly,  let  him  learn  so  to  look 
upon  the  honours,  the  pomp,  and  greatness  of  the  world,  as  to 
look  through  them  too.  Fools  indeed  are  apt  to  be  blown  up  by 
them,  and  to  sacrifice  all  for  them  ;  sometimes  venturing  their 
very  heads,  only  to  get  a  feather  in  their  caps.  But  wise  men, 
instead  of  looking  above  them,  choose  rather  to  look  about  them 
and  within  them,  and  by  so  doing  keep  their  eyes  always  in  their 
heads ;  and  maintain  a  noble  clearness  in  one,  and  steadiness  in 
the  other.  These,  I  say,  are  some  of  those  ways  and  methods  by 
which  this  great  and  internal  light,  the  judging  faculty  of  con- 
science, may  be  preserved  in  its  native  vigour  and  quickness. 
And  to  complete  the  foregoing  directions  by  the  addition  of  one 
word  more  ;  that  we  may  the  more  surely  prevent  our  affections 
from  working  too  much  upon  our  judgment,  let  us  wisely  beware 
of  all  such  things  as  may  work  too  strongly  upon  our  affections. 

"  If  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,"  says  our  Saviour, 
"how  great  must  that  darkness  needs  be!"  That  is,  how  fatal, 
how  destructive !  And  therefore  I  shall  close  up  all  with  those 
other  words  of  our  Saviour,  John  xii.,  "While  ye  have  the  light, 
walk  in  the  light ;"  so  that  the  way  to  have  it,  we  see,  is  to 
walk  in  it:  that  is,  by  the  actions  of  a  pious,  innocent,  well- 
governed  life,  to  cherish,  heighten,  and  improve  it ;  for  still,  so 
much  innocence,  so  much  light :  and  on  the  other  side,  to  abhor 
and  loathe  whatsoever  may  any  ways  discourage  and  eclipse  it ; 
as  every  degree  of  vice  assuredly  will.  And  thus  by  continual 
feeding  and  trimming  our  lamps,  we  shall  find  that  this  blessed 
light  within  us  will  grow  every  day  stronger  and  stronger,  and 
flame  out  brighter  and  brighter,  till  at  length,  having  led  us 
through  this  vale  of  darkness  and  mortality,  it  shall  bring  us  to 
those  happy  mansions,  where  there  is  light  and  life  for  evermore. 

Which  God,  the  great  author  of  both,  of  his  infinite  mercy 
vouchsafe  to  us  all ;  to  whom  be  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all 
praise,  might,  majesty-  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  evermore. 
Amen. 


440 


SERMON  XXVII. 

OF  LOVING  OUR  ENEMIES. 
[Preached  at  Westminster  Abbey,  May  29,  1670.] 

Matthew  v.  44. 
But  I  say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies. 

Before  we  descend  to  the  prosecution  of  the  duty  enjoined 
in  these  words,  it  is  requisite  that  we  consider  the  scheme  and 
form  of  them  as  they  stand  in  relation  to  the  context.  They  are 
ushered  in  with  the  adversative  particle  but,  which  stands  as 
a  note  of  opposition  to  something  going  before :  and  that  we 
have  in  the  immediately  preceding  verse,  Ye  have  heard  that  it 
hath  been  said,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour,  and  hate  thy  ene- 
my. But  I  say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies."  Which  way  of 
speaking  has  given  occasion  to  an  inquiry,  whether  the  duty  here 
enjoined  by  Christ  be  opposed  to  the  Mosaic  law,  or  only  to  the 
doctrines  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  and  their  corrupt  glosses 
thereupon ;  some  having  made  this  and  the  next,  chapter  not  only 
a  fuller  explication  and  vindication  of  the  Mosaic  law,  but  an  ad- 
dition of  higher  and  perfecter  rules  of  piety  and  morality  to  it. 

For  the  better  clearing  of  which  point,  I  conceive  that  the 
matter  of  all  the  commandments  (the  fourth  only,  as  it  deter- 
mines the  time  of  God's  solemn  worship  to  the  seventh  day,  ex- 
cepted), is  of  natural  moral  right,  and  by  consequence  carries 
with  it  a  necessary  and  eternal  obligation ;  as  rising  from  the 
unalterable  relation  that  a  rational  creature  bears  either  to  God, 
his  neighbour,  or  himself.  For  there  are  certain  rules  of  deport- 
ment suggested  by  nature  to  each  of  these,  which  to  deviate 
from,  or  not  come  up  to,  would  be  irrational,  and  consequently 
sinful.  So  that  such  duties  can  by  no  means  owe  their  first 
obligation  to  any  new  precept  given  by  Christ,  but  springing 
from  an  earlier  stock,  obliged  men  in  all  ages  and  places,  since  the 
world  began.  Forasmuch  as  that  general  habitude  or  relation 
(upon  which  all  particular  instances  of  duty  are  founded)  which 
men  bore  to  God,  their  neighbour,  and  themselves,  upon  account 
of  their  being  rational  creatures,  was  universally  and  equally  the 
same  in  all.  So  that  for  a  man  to  hate  his  enemy,  or  to  be  re- 
vengeful, or  to  be  angry  without  a  cause,  or  to  swear  rashly,  or 
by  looks,  words,  or  actions,  to  behave  himself  lasciviously,  were 
without  question  always  aberrations  from  the  dictates  of  rightly 
improved  reason;  and  consequently  in  the  very  nature  of  the 


OF  LOVING  OUR  ENEMIES. 


441 


things  themselves  unlawful.  For  if  there  were  not  a  natural 
evil  and  immorality  in  the  aforesaid  acts,  nor  a  goodness  in  the 
contrary,  but  that  all  this  issued  from  a  positive  injunction  of 
the  one,  and  prohibition  of  the  other ;  what  reason  can  be 
assigned,  but  that  God  might  have  commanded  the  said  acts,  and 
made  them  duties  instead  of  forbidding  them  ?  which  yet  cer- 
tainlv  would  be  a  very  strange  or  rather  monstrous  assertion, 
but  nevertheless,  by  a  necessity*  of  sequel,  unavoidable.  From 
whence  I  conceive  it  to  be  very  clear,  that  if  the  several  particu- 
lars commanded  or  forbidden  by  Christ,  in  that  his  great  sermon 
on  the  mount,  had  a  natural  good  or  evil  respectively  belonging 
to  them ;  Christ  thereby  added  no  new  precept  to  the  moral  law, 
which  eternally  was  and  will  be  the  same,  as  being  the  unalter- 
able standard  or  measure  of  the  behaviour  of  a  rational  creature 
in  all  its  relations  and  capacities. 

For  we  must  not  think,  that  when  the  law,  either  by  precept 
or  prohibition,  takes  notice  only  of  the  outward  act,  and  the 
gospel  afterwards  directs  itself  to  the  thoughts  and  desires,  the 
motives  and  causes  of  the  said  act ;  or  again,  when  the  law  gives 
only  a  general  precept,  and  the  gospel  assigns  several  particular 
instances  reducible  to  the  same  general  injunction,  that  therefore 
the  gospel  gives  so  many  new  precepts  corrective  or  perfective  of 
the  aforesaid  precepts  of  the  law.  No,  by  no  means ;  for  it  is  a 
rule  which  ever  was,  and  ever  ought  to  be  allowed  in  inter- 
preting the  divine  precepts,  that  every  such  precept  does  vir- 
tually and  implicitly,  and  by  a  parity  of  reason,  contain  in  it 
more  than  it  expressly  declares ;  which  is  so  true,  that  those 
persons  who  impugn  the  perfection  of  the  old  moral  precepts, 
and  upon  that  account  oppose  the  precepts  of  Christ  to  them,  do 
yet  find  it  necessary  to  maintain,  that  even  the  precepts  of  our 
Saviour  himself  ought  to  extend  their  obligation  to  many  more 
particulars  than  are  mentioned  in  them,  and  yet  are  not  to  be 
looked  upon  as  at  all  the  less  perfect  upon  that  account.  Which 
rule  of  interpreting  being  admitted,  and  made  use  of  as  to  the  pre- 
cepts of  the  New  Testament,  why  ought  it  not  to  take  place  in 
those  of  the  Old  also?  And  if  it  ought,  as  there  can  be  no 
shadow  of  reason  to  the  contrary,  I  dare  undertake,  that  there  will 
be  no  need  of  multiplying  of  new  precepts  in  the  gospel,  as 
often  as  the  Papists  and  Socinians  have  a  turn  to  serve  by  them. 
For  surely  every  new  instance  of  obedience  does  not  of  necessitv 
infer  a  new  precept;  and  for  that  reason  we  may  and  do  admit 
of  the  former,  without  any  need  of  asserting  the  latter.  The 
unity  of  a  precept  is  founded  in  the  general  unity  of  its  object, 
and  every  such  general  comprehends  many  particulars.  The  very 
institution  of  the  two  Christian  sacraments,  is  rather  the  assigna- 
tion of  two  new  instances  of  obedience  than  of  two  new  precepts. 
For  Christ  having  once  authentically  declared  that  God  would  be 
worshipped  by  those  two  solemn  acts,  the  antecedent  general 

Vol.  I.— 56 


442 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVII. 


precept  of  worshipping  God  according  to  his  own  will,  was  suffi- 
cient to  oblige  us  to  these  two  particular  branches  of  it,  being  thus 
declared ;  and  indeed  to  as  many  more  as  should  from  time  to 
time  be  suggested  to  our  practice.  For  otherwise,  if  the  multi- 
plication of  new  particular  instances  of  duty  should  multiply 
precepts  too,  it  would  render  them  innumerable,  which  would  be 
extremely  absurd  and  ridiculous. 

And  now,  all  that  has  been  here  alleged  by  us  against  the  ne- 
cessity of  holding  any  new  precepts  added  to  the  old  moral  law, 
as  it  obliged  all  mankind  (whether  notified  to  them  by  the  light 
of  nature  only,  or  by  revelation  too),  I  reckon  may  as  truly  be 
affirmed  of  the  law  of  Moses  also,  still  supposing  it  a  true  and 
perfect  transcript  of  the  said  moral  law,  as  we  have  all  the  reason 
in  the  world  to  believe  it  was ;  for  were  it  otherwise,  it  would  be 
hard  to  show  what  advantage  it  could  be  to  the  Jewish  church 
to  have  that  law  delivered  to  them ;  but  on  the  contrary,  it  must 
needs  have  been  rather  a  snare  than  a  privilege  or  help  to  them, 
as  naturally  giving  them  occasion  to  look  upon  that  as  the  most 
perfect  draught  of  their  duty,  when  yet  it  required  of  them  a 
lower  degree  of  obedience  than  nature  had  before  obliged  them 
to ;  it  being  a  thing  in  itself  most  rational,  to  suppose  the  latter 
declaration  of  a  legislator's  mind  to  be  still  the  fuller  and  more 
authentic.  And  therefore  if  other  duties  had  been  incumbent 
upon  the  Jewish  church  by  the  law  of  nature,  besides  what  were 
contained  in  the  law  of  Moses;  it  is  not  imaginable  how  they 
could  avoid  the  omission  of  those  duties  while  they  acquiesced  in 
the  directions  of  Moses  as  a  full  and  sufficient  rule  of  obedience, 
and  had  so  much  reason  so  to  do.  Which  yet  surely  must  have 
rendered  the  whole  Mosaic  dispensation  by  no  means  agreeable 
either  to  the  wisdom  or  goodness  of  God  towards  his  chosen 
people. 

For  though  indeed  the  moral  law,  as  a  covenant  promising  life 
upon  condition  of  absolute  indefective  obedience,  be  now  of  no 
use  to  justify  (sin  having  disabled  it  for  that  use  through  the  in- 
capacity of  the  subject),  yet  as  it  is  a  rule  directing  our  obedience 
and  a  law  binding  to  it,  it  still  continues  in  full  force,  and  will  do 
as  long  as  human  nature  endures.  And  as  for  the  absolute  per- 
fection of  it  in  the  quality  of  a  rule  directing,  and  a  law  obliging, 
can  that  be  more  amply  declared,  and  irrefragably  proved,  than 
as  it  stands  stated  and  represented  to  us  in  the  vast  latitude  of 
that  injunction,  Deut.  vi.  5,  and  Lev.  xix.  18,  "  Thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with 
all  thy  strength,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  thy  neighbour  as 
thyself."  I  say,  is  there  any  higher  degree  of  obedience  which 
the  nature  of  man  is  capable  of  yielding  to  his  Maker  than  this? 

Nevertheless  there  are  some  artists,  I  must  confess,  who  can 
draw  any  thing  out  of  any  thing,  who  answer,  that  these  words 
are  not  to  be  understood  of  absolutely  all  that  a  man  can  do; 


OF  LOVING  OUR  ENEMIES. 


443 


but  of  all  that  he  can  be  engaged  to  do  by  the  law  as  proposed 
under  such  an  economy,  namely,  as  enforced  with  temporal  pro- 
mises and  threatenings ;  so  that  upon  these  terms,  to  "  love  God 
with  all  thy  heart,"  &c,  is  to  love  him  with  the  utmost  of  such 
an  obedience,  as  laws,  seconded  with  temporal  blessings  and  curses, 
are  able  to  produce.    But  to  this  I  answer : 

First,  That  the  argument  bears  upon  a  supposition  by  no 
means  to  be  admitted,  to  wit,  that  the  law  of  Moses  proceeded 
only  upon  temporal  rewards  and  punishments:  which  is  most 
false,  and  contrary  to  the  constantly  received  doctrine  of  the 
Christian  church :  and  particularly  of  the  church  of  England,  as 
it  is  declared  in  the  sixth  of  her  Articles.  But, 

Secondly,  I  add  further,  that  the  obliging  power  of  the  law  is 
neither  founded  in,  nor  to  be  measured  by,  the  rewards  and 
punishments  annexed  to  it ;  but  by  the  sole  authority  of  the  law- 
giver springing  from  the  relation,  which  he  bears  of  a  creator 
and  governor,  to  mankind,  and  consequently  of  the  entire  de- 
pendence of  mankind  upon  him ;  by  virtue  whereof  they  owe 
him  the  utmost  service  that  their  nature  renders  them  capable  of 
doing  him.  And  that  I  am  sure,  is  capable  of  serving  him  at  a 
higher  rate  than  the  consideration  of  any  temporal  rewards  or 
punishments  can  raise  it  to  ;  since  oftentimes  the  bare  love  of 
virtue  itself  will  carry  a  man  further  than  these  can :  but  how- 
ever it  is  certain  that  eternal  rewards  can  do  so  ;  which  yet  add 
nothing  to  our  natural  powers  of  obeying,  though  they  draw 
them  forth  to  a  higher  pitch  of  obedience.  And  can  we  then 
imagine  that  God  would  sink  his  law  below  these  powers,  by 
leaving  some  degree  of  love  and  service  to  himself  absolutely 
within  the  strength  and  power  of  man,  which  he  did  not  think  fit 
by  the  Mosaic  law  to  oblige  him  to,  when  yet  our  Saviour  him- 
self promised  eternal  life  to  one,  upon  supposal  of  his  perform- 
ance of  this  law,  Luke  x.  28.  This  certainly  is  very  strange 
divinity.  But  after  all,  some  may  possibly  reply,  Does  not  the 
gospel  enjoin  us  that  perfection  and  height  of  charity  which  the 
law  never  did,  in  commanding  us  "  to  lay  down  our  life  for  our 
brother?"  1  John  iii.  16. 

To  which  I  answer,  That  this  is  a  precept  by  no  means  abso- 
lute and  universal,  but  always  to  be  limited  by  these  two  condi- 
tions, viz.  first,  that  the  glory  of  God,  and,  secondly,  that  the 
eternal  welfare  of  the  soul  of  our  brother  indispensably  requires 
this  of  us ;  upon  the  supposal  of  either  of  which  I  affirm,  it  was 
as  really  a  duty  from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  as  it  was  from 
that  very  time,  that  the  apostle  wrote  these  words ;  the  very 
common  voice  of  reason  upon  these  terms,  and  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, dictating  and  enjoining  no  less,  as  founding  itself 
upon  these  two  self-evident  and  undeniable  principles,  viz.  That 
the  life  of  the  creature  ought,  when  necessity  calls,  to  be  sacri- 
ficed to  the  glory  of  him  who  gave  it ;  and,  secondly,  that  we 


444 


DR.   SOUTIl's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVII. 


ought  to  prefer  the  eternal  good  of  our  neighbour  or  brother, 
before  the  highest  temporal  good  of  ourselves.  Which  manifestly 
shows,  that  this  high  instance  of  charity  (as  extraordinary  as  it 
appears)  did  not  at  length  begin  to  be  a  duty  by  any  evangelical 
sanction,  but  was  so  ever  since  there  were  such  creatures  in  the 
world  as  men,  and  consequently  that  all,  both  Jews  and  gentiles 
(whether  they  actually  knew  so  much  or  no)  would  have  sinned 
against  this  duty  of  charity,  should  they  have  refused  to  promote 
the  glory  of  their  Maker,  or  prevent  the  destruction  of  their 
brother's  immortal  soul,  being  called  thereto,  by  quitting  this 
temporal  life  for  the  sake  of  either.  And  consequently  that  this 
is  no  such  new  precept  to  be  reckoned  by  anno  Domini,  but  as 
old  as  the  obligations  of  charity  and  of  right  reason,  discoursing 
and  acting  upon  the  dictates  of  that  noble  principle. 

And  now  to  apply  this  general  discourse  to  the  particulars 
mentioned  in  this  chapter :  I  affirm,  that  Christ  does  by  no  means 
here  set  himself  against  the  law  of  Moses  as  a  law  either  faulty 
or  imperfect,  and  upon  those  accounts  needing  either  correction 
or  addition,  but  only  opposed  the  corrupt  comments  of  the  scribes 
and  Pharisees  upon  the  law,  as  really  contradictions  to  it  rather 
than  expositions  of  it ;  and  that  for  these  following  reasons : 

First,  Because  the  words  in  this  sermon  mentioned  and  opposed 
by  Christ,  are  manifestly,  for  the  most  part,  not  the  words  of  the 
law  itself,  but  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees.  As  for  instance, 
"  Whosoever  shall  kill,  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judgment." 
And  again  in  the  next  verse,  "  He  shall  be  in  danger  of  the 
council. "  They  all  refer  to  the  Pharisees'  way  of  expressing 
themselves ;  which  manifestly  shows,  that  it  was  their  doctrine 
and  words  which  he  was  now  disputing  against,  and  not  the  law 
itself ;  which  this  is  by  no  means  the  language  of. 

Secondly,  That  expression,  "  that  it  was  said  by  those*  of  old 
time"  was  not  uttered  by  Christ  in  his  own  person,  but  by  way 
of  prosopopoeia,  in  the  person  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  whose 
custom  it  was  to  preface  and  authorize  their  lectures  and  glosses 
to  the  people  with  the  pompous  plea  of  antiquity  and  tradition. 
As  if  Christ  had  bespoken  them  thus :  *  You  have  been  accus- 
tomed indeed  to  hear  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  tell  you,  that  this 
and  this  was  said  by  those  of  old  time,  but  notwithstanding  all 
these  pretences  I  tell  you  that  the  case  is  much  otherwise,  and 
that  the  true  account  and  sense  of  the  law  is  thus  and  thus?  This, 
I  say,  is  the  natural  purport  and  meaning  of  our  Saviour's  words, 
throughout  this  chapter. 

Thirdly,  That  passage  in  the  43rd  verse  of  the  same,  "  Ye  have 
heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  Ye  shall  love  your  neighbour  and 
hate  your  enemy,"  is  so  far  from  being  the  words  of  the  Mosaic 
law,  that  Moses  commands  the  clean  contrary  to  the  latter  clause, 
Exod.  xxiii.  4,  5.  "  If  thou  seest  thine  enemy's  ox  going  astray, 

*Some  render  it  "to  those." 


OF  LOVING  OUR  ENEMIES. 


445 


thou  shalt  surely  bring  it  back  to  him  again  ;  and  if  thou  seest 
the  ass  of  him  who  hateth  thee  lying  under  his  burden,  thou  shalt 
surely  help  him."  And  if  this  was  the  voice  of  the  law  then, 
can  we  imagine  that  it  would  make  it  a  man's  duty  to  relieve  his 
enemy's  ox  or  his  ass,  and  at  the  same  time  allow  him  to  hate  or 
malign  his  person  ?  This  certainly  is  unaccountable  and  in- 
credible. 

Fourthly,  If  Christ  opposed  his  precepts  to  those  of  the  Mosaic 
law,  then  God  speaking  by  Christ  must  contradict  himself  as 
speaking  by  Moses.  For  whatsoever  Moses  spoke,  he  spoke  as 
the  immediate  dictates  of  God,  from  whom  he  received  the  law. 
But  this  is  absurd,  and  by  no  means  consistent  with  the  divine 
holiness  and  veracity. 

Fifthly  and  lastly,  Christ  in  all  his  discourse  never  calls  any 
one  of  the  doctrines  opposed  by  him  the  words  of  Moses,  or  of 
the  law,  but  only  "the  righteousness  of  the  scribes  and  Phari- 
sees," which  shows  that  they,  and  they  only,  were  the  persons 
with  whom  he  managed  this  whole  contest. 

Let  this  therefore  rest  with  us  as  a  firm  conclusion ;  that  Moses 
and  Christ  were  at  perfect  agreement,  whatever  the  controversy 
was  between  him  and  the  Pharisees.  And  so  from  the  scheme 
and  context  of  the  words,  I  pass  to  the  duty  enjoined  in  them, 
which  is  "  to  love  our  enemies:"  the  discussion  of  which  I  shall 
cast  under  these  three  general  heads : 

First,  I  shall  shew  negatively  what  is  not  that  love,  which  we 
are  here  commanded  to  show  our  enemies. 

Secondly,  I  shall  show  positively  wherein  it  does  consist. 

Thirdly,  I  shall  produce^  arguments  to  enforce  it. 

I.  And  for  the  first  of  these  ;  what  is  not  that  love  which  we 
must  show  our  enemies :  this  we  shall  find  to  exclude  several 
things  which  would  fain  wear  this  name.  t 

1.  As  first,  to  treat  an  enemy  with  a  fair  deportment  and 
amicable  language,  is  not  the  love  here  enjoined  by  Christ.  Love 
is  a  thing  that  scorns  to  dwell  any  where  but  in  the  heart.  The 
tongue  is  a  thing  made  for  words ;  but  what  reality  is  there  in  a 
voice,  what  substance  in  a  sound  ?  and  words  are  no  more.  The 
kindness  of  the  heart  never  kills,  but  that  of  the  tongue  often 
does.  And  in  an  ill  sense  a  soft  answer  may  sometimes  break 
the  bones.  He  who  speaks  me  well,  proves  himself  a  rhetorician 
or  a  courtier :  but  that  is  not  to  be  a  friend. 

Was  ever  the  hungry  fed,  or  the  naked  clothed  with  good 
looks  or  fair  speeches?  these  are  but  thin  garments  to  keep  out 
the  cold,  and  but  a  slender  repast  to  conjure  down  the  rage  of  a 
craving  appetite.  My  enemy  perhaps  is  ready  to  starve  or  perish 
through  poverty,  and  I  tell  him  I  am  heartily  glad  to  see  him, 
and  should  be  very  ready  to  serve  him,  but  still  my  hand  is  close, 
and  my  purse  shut ;  I  neither  bring  him  to  my  table,  nor  lodge 


446 


DR.   SOUTH 'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVII. 


him  under  my  roof ;  he  asks  for  bread,  and  I  give  him  a  compli- 
ment, a  thing  indeed  not  so  hard  as  a  stone,  but  altogether  as 
dry.  I  treat  him  with  art  and  outside;  and  lastly,  at  parting, 
with  all  the  ceremonies  of  dearness,  I  shake  him  by  the  hand, 
but  put  nothing  into  it.  In  a  word,  I  play  with  his  distress,  and 
dally  with  that  which  will  not  be  dallied  with,  want  and  misery, 
and  a  clamorous  necessity. 

For  will  fair  words  and  a  courtly  behaviour  pay  debts  and 
discharge  scores?  If  they  could,  there  is  a  sort  of  men  that 
would  not  be  so  much  in  debt  as  they  are.  Can  a  man  look  and 
speak  himself  out  of  his  creditor's  hands?  Surely  then,  if  my 
words  cannot  do  this  for  myself,  neither  can  they  do  it  for  my 
enemy.  And  therefore  this  has  nothing  of  the  love  spoken  of  in 
the  text.  It  is  but  a  scene  and  a  mere  mockery,  for  the  receiving 
that,  cannot  make  my  enemy  at  all  the  richer,  the  giving  of 
which  makes  me  not  one  penny  the  poorer.  It  is  indeed  the 
fashion  of  the  world  thus  to  amuse  men  with  empty  caresses,  and 
to  feast  them  with  words  and  air,  looks  and  legs  ;  nay,  and  it  has 
this  peculiar  privilege  above  all  other  fashions,  that  it  never  alters ; 
but  certainly  no  man  ever  yet  quenched  his  thirst  with  looking 
upon  a  golden  cup,  nor  made  a  meal  with  the  outside  of  a  lordly 
dish. 

But  we  are  not  to  rest  here ;  fair  speeches  and  looks  are  not 
only  very  insignificant  as  to  the  real  effects  of  love,  but  are  for 
the  most  part  the  instruments  of  hatred  in  the  execution  of  the 
greatest  mischiefs.  Few  men  are  to  be  ruined  till  they  are  made 
confident  of  the  contrary:  and  this  cannot  be  done  by  threats 
and  roughness,  and  owning  the  mischief  that  a  man  designs ;  but 
the  pitfall  must  be  covered  to  invite  the  man  to  venture  over  it ; 
all  things  must  be  sweetened  with  professions  of  love,  friendly 
looks,  and  embraces.  For  it  is  oil  that  whets  the  razor,  and  the 
smoothest  edge  is  still  the  sharpest:  they  are  the  complacencies 
of  an  enemy  that  kill,  the  closest  hugs  that  stifle,  and  love  must 
be  pretended  before  malice  can  be  effectually  practised.  In  a 
word,  he  must  get  into  his  heart  with  fair  speeches  and  promises, 
before  he  can  come  at  it  with  his  dagger.  For  surely  no  man 
fishes  with  a  bare  hook,  or  thinks  that  the  net  itself  can  be  any 
enticement  to  the  bird. 

But  now,  if  these  outward  shows  of  fairness  are  short  of  the 
love  which  we  owe  to  our  enemies ;  what  can  we  say  of  those 
who  have  not  arrived  so  far  as  these,,  and  yet  pretend  to  be 
friends  ?  Disdain  and  distance,  sour  looks  and  sharp  words,  are 
all  the  expressions  of  friendship  that  some  natures  can  manifest. 
I  confess,  where  real  kindnesses  are  done,  these  circumstantial 
garnitures  of  love,  as  I  may  so  call  them,  may  be  dispensed  with  ; 
and  it  is  better  to  have  a  rough  friend  than  a  fawning  enemy :  but 
those  who  neither  do  good  turns,  nor  give  good  looks,  nor  .speak 
good  words,  have  a  love  strangely  subtile  and  metaphysical :  for 


OF  LOVING  OUR  ENEMIES. 


447 


other  poor  mortals  of  an  ordinary  capacity  are  forced  to  be  igno- 
rant of  what  they  can  neither  see,  hear,  feel,  nor  understand. 
And  thus  much  for  the  first  negative.  The  love  that  we  are  to 
show  to  enemies,  is  not  a  fair  external  courtly  deportment ;  it  is 
not  such  a  thing  as  may  be  learnt  in  a  dancing  school,  nor  in 
those  shops  of  fallacy  and  dissimulation,  the  courts  and  palaces 
of  great  men,  where  men's  thoughts  and  words  stand  at  an  in- 
finite distance,  and  their  tongues  and  minds  hold  no  correspon- 
dence or  intercourse  with  one  another. 

2.  Fair  promises  are  not  the  love  that  our  Saviour  here  com- 
mands us  to  show  our  enemies.  And  yet  these  are  one  step  and 
advance  above  the  former :  for  many  fair  speeches  may  be  given, 
manv  courteous  harangues  uttered,  and  yet  no  promise  made. 
And  it  is  worth  observing  how  some  great  ones  often  delude,  and 
simple  ones  suffer  themselves  to  be  deluded,  by  general  discourses 
and  expressions  of  courtesy.  As,  '  Take  you  no  care,  I  will  pro- 
vide for  you.  I  will  never  see  you  want.  Leave  your  business 
in  my  hands,  and  I  will  manage  it  with  as  much  or  more  concern 
than  vou  yourself.  What  need  you  insist  so  much  upon  this  or 
that  in  particular.  I  design  better  things  for  you.'  But  all  this 
while  there  is  no  particular  determinate  thing  promised,  so  as  to 
hold  such  a  one  by  any  real  solid  engagement  (supposing  that  his 
promises  were  such),  but  perhaps  when  the  next  advantage  comes 
in  the  way,  the  man  is  forgot,  and  balked  :  yet  still  those  general 
speeches  hold  as  true  as  ever  they  did,  and  so  will  continue  not- 
withstanding all  particular  defeats  ;  as  indeed  being  never  calcu- 
lated for  any  thing  else  but  to  keep  up  the  expectation  of  easy 
persons;  to  feed  them  for  the  present,  and  to  fail  them  in  the 
issue. 

But  now,  as  these  empty-  glossing  words  are  short  of  promises, 
so  promises  are  equally  short  of  performances.  Concerning  both 
which  I  shall  say  this,  that  there  is  no  wise  man,  but  had  rather 
have  had  one  promise  than  a  thousand  fair  words,  and  one  per- 
formance than  ten  thousand  promises.  For  what  trouble  is  it  to 
promise,  what  charge  is  it  to  spend  a  little  breath,  for  a  man  to 
give  one  his  word,  who  never  intends  to  give  him  any  thing  else  ? 
And  yet,  according  to  the  measures  of  the  world,  this  must 
sometimes  pass  for  a  high  piece  of  love ;  and  many  poor  inex- 
perienced believing  souls,  who  have  more  honesty-  than  wit,  think 
themselves  wrapped  up  into  the  third  heaven,  and  actually 
possessed  of  some  notable  preferment,  when  they  can  say,  u  I 
have  such  a  great  person's  promise  for  such  and  such  a  thing." 
Have  they  so?  Let  them  see  if  such  a  promise  will  pay  rent, 
buy  land,  and  maintain  them  like  gentlemen.  It  is  at  the  best 
but  a  future  contingent ;  for  either  the  man  may  die,  or  his  in- 
terest may  fail,  or  his  mind  may  change,  or  ten  thousand  accidents 
may  intervene.  Promises  are  a  diet  which  none  ever  yet  thrived 
by,  and  a  man  may  feed  upon  them  heartily,  and  never  break 


448 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[serm.  xxvn. 


his  fast.  In  a  word,  I  may  say  of  human  promises,  what  ex- 
positors say  of  divine  prophecies,  "  that  they  are  never  under- 
stood till  they  come  to  be  fulfilled." 

But  how  speaks  the  scripture  of  these  matters?  Why,  in 
Rom.  xii.  20,  "  If  thine  enemy  hunger,  feed  him ;  if  he  thirst, 
give  him  drink."  It  is  not,  Promise  him  meat  and  drink  a  week 
hence,  that  is  perhaps  two  days  after  he  is  dead  with  thirst  and 
hunger.  He  who  lives  only  upon  reversions,  and  maintains  him- 
self with  hope,  and  has  nothing  to  cover  him  but  the  clothes  of 
dead  men,  and  the  promises  of  the  living,  will  find  just  as  much 
relief  from  them,  as  a  man  in  the  depth  of  winter  feels  the  heat 
of  the  following  summer. 

But  bare  promises  are  so  far  from  answering  Christ's  precept 
of  loving  our  enemies,  that  if  they  are  not  realized  in  deeds,  they 
become  a  plague  and  a  great  calamity.  For  they  raise  an  expecta- 
tion, which,  unsatisfied  or  defeated,  is  the  greatest  of  torments ; 
they  betray  a  man  to  a  fallacious  dependence,  which  bereaves 
him  of  the  succours  of  his  other  endeavours,  and  in  the  issue 
leaves  him  to  inherit  the  shame  and  misery  of  a  disappointment, 
and  unable  to  say  any  thing  else  for  himself,  but  that  he  was 
credulous,  and  the  promiser  false. 

3.  But  thirdly  and  lastly,  to  advance  a  degree  yet  higher,  to 
do  one  or  two  kind  offices  for  an  enemy  is  not  to  fulfil  the  pre- 
cept of  loving  him.  He  who  clothes  a  naked  man  with  a  pair  of 
gloves,  and  administers  to  one  perishing  with  thirst,  a  drop  or 
two  of  water,  reaches  not  the  measure  of  his  necessity ;  but 
instead  of  relieving,  only  upbraids  his  want,  and  passes  a  jest 
upon  his  condition.  It  is  like  pardoning  a  man  the  debt  of  a 
penny,  and  in  the  mean  time  suing  him  fiercely  for  a  talent. 
Love  is  then  only  of  reality  and  value  when  it  deals  forth 
benefits  in  a  full  proportion  to  one's  need :  and  when  it  shows 
itself  both  in  universality  and  constancy.  Otherwise  it  is  only  a 
trick  to  serve  a  turn,  and  carry  on  a  design. 

For  he  who  would  take  a  cleanly,  unsuspected  way  to  ruin  his 
adversary,  must  pave  the  way  to  his  destruction  with  some 
courtesies  of  a  lighter  sort,  the  sense  of  which  shall  take  him  off 
•from  his  guard,  his  wariness,  and  suspicion,  and  so  lay  him  open 
to  such  a  blow  as  shall  destroy  him  at  once.  The  skilful  rider 
strokes  and '  pleases  the  unruly  horse,  only  that  he  may  come 
so  near  him,  as  to  get  the  bit  into  his  mouth,  and  then  he 
rides,  and  rules,  and  domineers  over  him  at  his  pleasure.  So 
he  who  hates  his  enemy  with  a  cunning  equal  to  his  malice, 
will  not  strain  to  do  this  or  that  good  turn  for  him,  so  long  as  it 
does  not  thwart,  but  rather  promote  the  main  design  of  his  utter 
subversion.  For  all  this  is  but  like  the  helping  a  man  over  the 
stile,  who  is  going  to  be  hanged,  which  surely  is  no  very  great  or 
difficult  piece  of  civility. 

In  the  reign  of  queen  Elizabeth,  we  read  of  one  whom  the 


OF  LOVING  OUR  ENEMIES. 


449 


grandees  of  the  court  procured  to  be  made  secretary  of  state,  only 
to  break  his  back  in  the  business  of  the  queen  of  Scots,  whose 
death  they  were  then  projecting.  Like  true  courtiers  they  first 
engage  him  in  that  fatal  scene,  and  then  desert  him  in  it,  using 
him  only  as  a  tool  to  do  a  present  state  job,  and  then  to  be 
reproached  and  ruined  for  what  he  had  done.  And  a  little  obser- 
vation of  the  world  may  show  us,  there  is  not  only  a  course  of 
beheading,  or  hanging,  but  also  of  preferring  men  out  of  the 
way.  But  this  is  not  to  love  an  enemy,  but  to  hate  him  more 
artificially.  He  is  ruined  more  speciously  indeed,  but  not  less 
efficaciously,  than  if  he  had  been  laid  fast  in  a  dungeon,  or 
banished  his  country,  or  by  a  packed  jury  despatched  into 
another  world. 

II.  And  thus  having  done  with  the  negative,  I  come  now  to 
the  second  general  thing  proposed,  namely,  to  show  positively  what 
is  included  in  the  duty  of  loving  our  enemies. 

It  includes  these  three  things. 

1.  A  discharging  the  mind  of  all  rancour  and  virulence  towards 
an  adversary.  The  scripture  most  significantly  calls  it  "the 
leaven  of  malice,"  and  we  know,  that  is  of  a  spreading  and  fer- 
menting nature,  and  will  in  time  diffuse  a  sourness  upon  a  man's 
whole  behaviour:  but  we  will  suppose  (which  is  yet  seldom 
found)  that  a  man  has  such  an  absolute  empire  and  command 
over  his  heart,  as  for  ever  to  stifle  his  disgusts,  and  to  manage 
his  actions  in  a  constant  contradiction  to  his  affections,  and  to 
maintain  a  friendly  converse,  while  he  is  hot  with  the  rancour  of 
an  enemy ;  yet  all  this  is  but  the  mystery  of  dissimulation,  and 
to  act  a  part,  instead  of  acting  a  friend. 

Besides  the  trouble  and  anxiety  to  the  very  person  who  thus 
behaves  himself — for  enmity  is  a  restless  thing,  and  not  to  be 
dissembled  without  some  torment  to  the  mind  that  entertains  it 
— it  is  more  easily  removed  than  covered.  It  is  as  if  a  man 
should  endeavour  to  keep  the  sparks  from  flying  out  of  a  furnace, 
or  as  if  a  birth  should  be  stopped  when  it  is  ripe  and  ready  for 
delivery,  which  surely  would  be  a  pain  greater  than  that  of 
bringing  forth. 

He  who  is  resolved  to  hate  his  enemy,  and  yet  resolves  not  to 
show  it,  has  turned  the  edge  of  his  hatred  inwards,  and  becomes 
a  tyrant  and  an  enemy  to  himself;  he  could  not  wish  his  mortal 
adversary  a  greater  misery,  than  thus  to  carry  a  mind  always  big 
and  swelling,  and  ever  ready  to  burst,  and  yet  never  to  give 
it  vent. 

But  on  the  other  side,  it  is  no  pain  for  a  man  to  appear  what 
he  is,  and  to  declare  a  real  principle  of  love  in  sensible  demon- 
strations. Does  a  man  therefore  find  that  both  his  duty  and  his 
interest  require,  that  he  should  deport  himself  with  all  signs  of 
love  to  his  enemies?  let  him  but  take  this  easy  course  as  to 

Vol.  I. — 57  2  p  2 


450 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVII. 


entertain  the  thing  in  his  heart  which  he  would  manifest  in  his 
converse,  and  then  he  will  find  that  his  work  is  as  natural  and 
easy,  as  it  is  for  fire  to  cast  abroad  a  flame.  Art  is  difficult,  but 
whatsoever  is  natural  is  easy  too. 

2.  To  love  an  enemy  is  to  do  him  all  the  real  offices  of  kind- 
ness, that  opportunity  shall  lay  in  our  way.  Love  is  of  too  sub- 
stantial a  nature  to  be  made  up  of  mere  negatives,  and  withal  too 
operative  to  terminate  in  bare  desires.  Does  Providence  cast 
any  of  my  enemy's  concernments  under  my  power ;  as  his  health, 
his  estate,  preferment,  or  any  thing  conducing  to  the  con- 
veniences of  his  life  ?  Why,  in  all  this  it  gives  me  an  oppor- 
tunity to  manifest,  whether  or  no  I  can  reach  the  sublimity  of 
this  precept  of  "  loving  my  enemies." 

Is  my  enemy  sick  and  languishing,  and  is  it  in  my  power  to 
cure  him  as  easily,  or  to  kill  him  as  safely,  as  if  I  were  his 
physician  ?  Christianity  here  commands  me  to  be  concerned  for 
his  weakness,  to  show  him  a  remedy,  and  to  rescue  him  from  the 
grave ;  and  in  a  word,  to  preserve  that  life,  which  perhaps  would 
have  once  destroyed  mine. 

Do  I  see  my  enemy  defrauded  and  circumvented,  and  like  to 
be  undone  in  his  estate  ?  I  must  not  sit  still  and  see  him  ruined, 
and  tell  him  I  wish  him  well ;  which  is  a  contradiction  in  prac- 
tice, and  an  impudent,  ill-natured  sarcasm.  But  I  must  contri- 
bute my  hearty  assistance  to  discover  the  fraud,  and  to  repel  the 
force :  and  as  readily  keep  him  from  being  poor,  as  relieve  him  if 
he  were.  I  must  be  as  forward  in  the  pursuit  of  the  thief  who 
stole  his  goods,  who  once  plundered  mine,  as  if  the  injury  had 
lighted  upon  my  friend,  my  kinsman,  or  myself. 

And  lastly,  does  it  lie  in  my  way  to  put  in  a  word  to  dash  or 
promote  my  enemy's  business  or  interest  ?  To  give  him  a  secret 
blow,  such  a  one  as  shall  strike  his  interest  to  the  ground  for 
ever,  and  he  never  know  the  hand  from  whence  it  came?  Can  I 
by  my  power  obstruct  his  lawful  advantage  and  preferments, 
and  so  reap  the  diabolical  satisfaction  of  a  close  revenge  ?  Can  I 
do  him  all  the  mischief  imaginable,  and  that  easily,  safely,  and 
successfully,  and  so  applaud  myself  in  my  power,  my  wit,  and 
my  subtile  contrivances,  for  which  the  world  shall  court  me  as 
formidable  and  considerable?  Yet  all  these  wretched  practices 
and  accursed  methods  of  growing  great,  and  rising  by  the  fall  of 
an  enemy,  are  to  be  detested  as  infinitely  opposite  to  that  inno- 
cence and  clearness  of  spirit,  that  openness  and  freedom  from 
design,  that  becomes  a  professor  of  Christianity. 

On  the  contrary,  amidst  all  these  opportunities  of  doing  mis- 
chief, I  must  espouse  my  enemy's  just  cause,  as  his  advocate  or 
solicitor.  I  must  help  it  forward  by  favourable  speeches  of  his 
person,  acknowledgment  of  his  worth  and  merit,  by  a  fair  con- 
struction of  doubtful  passages ;  and  all  this,  if  need  be,  in  secret, 
where  my  enemy  neither  sees  nor  hears  me  do  him  these  services, 


OF  LOVING  OUR  ENEMIES.  451 

and  consequently  where  I  have  all  the  advantages  and  tempta- 
tions to  do  otherwise.  In  short,  the  gospel  enjoins  a  greater  love 
to  our  enemies,  than  men,  for  the  most  part,  now-a-days  show 
their  friends. 

3.  The  last  and  crowning  instance  of  our  love  to  our  enemies, 
is  to  pray  for  them.  For  by  this  a  man,  as  it  were,  acknow- 
ledges himself  unable  to  do  enough  for  his  enemy ;  and  therefore 
he  calls  in  the  assistance  of  heaven,  and  engages  omnipotence  to 
complete  the  kindness.  He  would  fain  outdo  himself,  and 
therefore  finding  his  own  stores  short  and  dry,  he  repairs  to  infi- 
nity-. Prayer  for  a  man's  self  is  indeed  a  choice  duty,  yet  it  is 
but  a  kind  of  lawful  and  pious  selfishness.  For  who  would  not 
solicit  for  his  own  happiness,  and  be  importunate  for  his  own  con- 
cerns ?  But  when  I  pray  as  heartily  for  my  enemy,  as  I  do  for  my 
daily  bread;  when  I  strive  with  prayers  and  tears  to  make  God  his 
friend,  who  himself  will  not  be  mine ;  when  I  reckon  his  felicity 
among  my  own  necessities ;  surely  this  is  such  a  love  as,  in  a 
literal  sense,  may  be  said  to  reach  up  to  heaven.  For  nobody 
judges  that  a  small  and  trivial  thing,  for  which  he  dares  to  pray: 
no  man  comes  into  the  presence  of  a  king  to  beg  pins.  And 
therefore,  if  a  man  did  not  look  upon  the  good  of  his  enemy,  as  a 
thing  that  nearly  affected  himself,  he  could  not  own  it  as  a  matter 
of  petition,  and  endeavour  to  concern  God  about  that  with 
which  he  will  not  concern  himself.  And  upon  the  same  ground 
also  is  inferred  the  necessity  of  a  man's  personal  endeavouring  the 
good  and  happiness  of  his  enemy :  for  prayer  without  endeavour 
is  but  an  affront  to  the  throne  of  grace,  and  a  lazy  throwing  that 
which  is  our  own  duty  upon  God.  As  if  a  man  should  say,  God 
forgive  you,  God  relieve  and  comfort  you,  for  I  will  not.  But  if 
to  pray  for  an  enemy  be  a  duty,  surely  the  manner  in  which  we 
do  it  ought  to  be  so  too :  and  not  such  as  shall  turn  a  supplica- 
tion for  him  into  a  satire  against  him,  by  representing  him  in  our 
prayers  under  the  character  of  one  void  of  all  grace  and  goodness, 
and  consequently  a  much  fitter  object  for  God's  vengeance  than 
his  mercy.  And  yet  there  was  a  time  in  which  this  way  of 
praying  was  in  no  small  vogue  with  a  certain  sort  of  men,  who 
would  allow  neither  the  gift  nor  spirit  of  prayer  to  any  but 
themselves.  For  if  at  any  time  they  prayed  for  those  whom 
they  accounted  their  enemies  (and  that  only  because  they  had  done 
so  much  to  make  them  so),  it  could  not  be  properly  called  an  inter- 
ceding with  God  for  them,  but  a  downright  indicting  and  arraign- 
ing them  before  God,  as  a  pack  of  graceless  wTretches  and  villains, 
and  avowed  enemies  to  the  power  and  purity  of  the  gospel. 
This  and  the  like,  I  say,  was  the  devout  language  of  their 
prayers,  sometimes  by  intimation,  and  sometimes  by  direct  ex- 
pression :  and  thus  under  the  colour  and  cover  of  some  plausible 
artificial  words,  it  was  but  for  them  to  call  those  whom  they  ma- 
ligned ajiticluist,  and  themselves  the  Iciiigdom  of  Christ,  and  then 


452 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVII. 


they  might  very  laudably  pray  for  the  pulling  down  of  the  one, 
and  the  setting  up  of  the  other,  and  thereby  no  doubt  answer  all 
the  measures  of  a  sanctified,  self-denying  petition.*  But  as 
those  days  are  at  an  end,  so  it  were  to  be  wished  that  such  kind 
of  praying  were  so  too ;  especially  since  our  church,  I  am  sure, 
has  so  much  charity,  as  to  teach  all  of  her  communion  to  pray 
for  those  who  are  not  only  enemies  to  our  persons,  but  also  to  our 
very  prayers. 

And  thus  I  have  endeavoured  to  show,  what  it  is  to  "love  our 
enemies ;"  though  I  will  not  say  that  I  have  recounted  all  the 
instances  in  which  this  duty  may  exert  itself.  For  love  is  infi- 
nite, and  the  methods  of  its  acting  various  and  innumerable. 
But  I  suppose  that  I  have  marked  out  those  generals  which  all 
particulars  may  be  fairly  reduced  to. 

And  now,  before  I  proceed  to  the  motives  and  arguments  to 
enforce  the  duty,  I  shall,  to  prevent  some  abuses  of  this  doctrine, 
show  what  is  not  inconsistent  with  this  loving  our  enemies :  and 
that  is  to  defend  and  secure  ourselves  against  them.  I  am  to  love 
my  enemy,  but  not  so  as  to  hate  myself:  if  my  love  to  him  be  a 
copy,  I  am  sure  the  love  to  myself  ought  to  be  the  original. 
Charity  is  indeed  to  diffuse  itself  abroad,  but  yet  it  may  lawfully 
begin  at  home :  for  the  precept  surely  is  not  unnatural  and  irra- 
tional ;  nor  can  it  state  the  duty  of  Christains  in  opposition  to 
the  privileges  of  men,  and  command  us  tamely  to  surrender  him 
our  lives  and  estates  as  often  as  the  hands  of  violence  would 
wrest  them  from  us.  We  may  love  our  enemies,  but  we  are  not 
therefore  to  be  fond  of  their  enmity.  And  though  I  am  com- 
manded when  my  enemy  "thirsts  to  give  him  drink,"  yet  it  is 
not  when  he  thirsts  for  my  blood.  It  is  my  duty  to  give  him  an 
alms,  but  not  to  let  him  take  my  estate.  Princes  and  governors 
may  very  well  secure  themselves  with  laws  and  arms  against  im- 
placable enemies  for  all  this  precept :  they  are  not  bound  to  leave 
the  state  defenceless,  against  the  projects,  plots,  and  insurrections 
of  those  who  are  pleased  to  think  themselves  persecuted,  if  they 
are  not  permitted  to  reign.  We  may  with  a  very  fair  comport- 
ment, with  this  precept  love  our  enemies'  persons,  while  we  hate 
their  principles  and  counterplot  their  designs. 

III.  I  come  now  to  the  third  and  last  thing,  viz.  to  assign  mo- 
tives and  arguments  to  enforce  this  love  to  our  enemy  ;  and  they  shall 
be  taken 

1.  From  the  condition  of  our  enemy's  person.  2.  From  the 
excellency  of  the  duty.  3.  From  the  great  examples  that  re- 
commend it :  and, 

For  the  first  of  these,  if  we  consider  our  enemy,  we  shall  find 
that  he  sustains  several  capacities,  which  may  give  him  a  just 
claim  to  our  charitable  affection. 

*  See  something  upon  the  like  subject,  p.  255,  of  this  volume. 


OF  LOVING  OUR  ENEMIES. 


453 


(1.)  As  first,  he  is  joined  with  us  in  the  society  and  community 
of  the  same  nature.  He  is  a  man :  and  so  far  bears  the  image 
and  superscription  of  our  heavenly  Father.  He  may  cease  to  be 
our  friend,  but  he  cannot  cease  to  be  our  brother.  For  we  all 
descended  from  the  same  loins,  and  though  Esau  hates  Jacob,  and 
Jacob  supplants  Esau,  yet  they  once  lay  in  the  same  womb: 
and  therefore  the  saying  of  Moses  may  be  extended  to  all  men  at 
variance  ;  "  Why  do  ye  wrong  one  to  another,  for  ye  are  brethren  ?" 
If  my  enemy  were  a  snake  or  a  viper,  I  could  do  no  more  than 
hate  and  trample  upon  him;  but  shall  I  hate  the  seed  of  the 
woman  as  much  as  I  do  that  of  the  serpent  ?  We  hold  that  God 
loves  the  most  sinful  of  his  creatures  so  far  as  they  are  his  crea- 
tures ;  and  the  very  devils  could  not  sin  themselves  out  of  an 
excellent  nature,  though  out  of  a  happy  condition. 

Even  war,  which  is  the  rage  of  mankind,  and  observes  no  laws 
but  its  own,  yet  offers  quarter  to  an  enemy ;  I  suppose,  because 
enmity  does  not  obliterate  humanity,  nor  wTholly  cancel  the  sym- 
pathies of  nature.  For  every  man  does,  or  I  am  sure  he  may, 
see  something  of  himself  in  his  enemy,  and  a  transcript  of  those 
perfections  for  which  he  values  himself. 

And  therefore  those  inhuman  butcheries  which  some  men  have 
acted  upon  others,  stand  upon  record  not  only  as  the  crimes  of 
persons,  but  also  as  the  reproach  of  our  very  nature,  and  excus- 
able upon  no  other  colour  or  account  whatsoever,  but  that  the 
persons  who  acted  such  cruelties  upon  other  men  first  ceased  to 
be  men  themselves :  and  were  indeed  to  be  reckoned  as  so  many 
anomalies  and  exceptions  from  mankind ;  persons  of  another  make 
or  mould  from  the  rest  of  the  sons  of  Adam,  and  deriving  their 
original  not  from  the  dust,  but  rather  from  the  stones  of  the 
earth. 

(2.)  An  enemy,  notwithstanding  his  enmity,  may  be  yet  the 
proper  object  of  our  love,  because  it  sometimes  so  falls  out,  that 
he  is  of  the  same  religion  with  us ;  and  the  very  business  and 
design  of  religion  is  to  unite,  and  to  put,  as  it  wrere,  a  spiritual 
cognation  and  kindred  between  souls.  I  am  sure  this  is  the  great 
purpose  of  the  Christian  religion ;  which  never  joins  men  to 
Christ  but  by  first  joining  them  amongst  themselves:  and  mak- 
ing them  "  members  one  of  another,"  as  well  as  knitting  them  all 
to  the  same  head.  By  how  much  the  more  intolerable  were  our 
late  zealots,  in  their  pretences  to  a  more  refined  strain  of  purity 
and  converse  with  God;  while  in  the  mean  time  their  hearts 
could  serve  them  to  plunder,  worry,  and  undo  their  poor  breth- 
ren, only  for  their  loyal  adherence  to  their  sovereign ;  sequester- 
ing and  casting  whole  families  out  of  their  houses  and  livings  to 
starve  abroad  in  the  wide  world,  against  all  the  laws  of  God  and 
man ;  and  wrho  to  this  day  breathe  the  same  rage  towards  all 
dissenters  from  them,  should  they  once  more  get  the  reforming 
sword  into  their  hands.     WThat  these  men's  religion  may  teach 


454 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVII. 


them,  I  know  not ;  but  I  am  sure  it  is  so  far  from  teaching  them 
to  love  their  enemies,  that  .they  found  their  bitterest  enmities 
and  most  inveterate  hatreds  only  upon  religion  ;  which  has  taught 
them  first  to  call  their  malice  zeal,  and  then  to  think  it  their  duty 
to  be  malicious  and  implacable. 

(3.)  An  enemy  may  be  the  proper  object  of  our  love,  because, 
though  perhaps  he  is  not  capable  of  being  changed  and  made  a 
friend  by  it  (which,  for  any  thing  I  know,  is  next  to  impossible), 
yet  he  is  capable  of  being  shamed  and  rendered  inexcusable. 
And  shame  may  smooth  over  his  behaviour,  though  no  kindness 
can  change  his  disposition ;  .upon  which  account  it  is,  that  so  far 
as  a  man  shames  his  enemy,  so  far  he  also  disarms  him.  For  he 
leaves  him  stripped  of  the  assistance  and  good  opinion  of  the 
world  around  about  him :  without  which,  it  is  impossible  for  any 
man  living  to  be  considerable,  either  in  his  friendship  or 
-enmities. 

Love  is  the  fire  that  must  both  heap  and  kindle  "  those  coals 
upon  our  enemy's  head,"  that  shall  either  melt  or  consume  him. 
For  that  man  I  account  as  good  as  consumed  and  ruined,  whom 
all  people,  upon  the  common  concern  of  mankind,  abhor  for  his 
ingratitude,  as  a  pest  and  a  public  enemy.  So  that  if  my  enemy 
is  resolved  to  treat  me  spitefully,  notwithstanding  all  my  endea- 
vours to  befriend  and  oblige  him ;  and  if  he  will  still  revile  and 
rail  at  me,  after  I  have  employed  both  tongue  and  hand  to  serve 
and  promote  him,  surely  I  shall  by  this  means  at  least  make  his 
virulent  words  recoil  upon  his  bold  face  and  his  foul  mouth ;  and 
so  turn  that  stream  of  public  hatred  and  detestation  justly  upon 
himself,  which  he  was  endeavouring  to  bring  upon  me.  And  if 
I  do  no  more,  it  is  yet  worth  while,  even  upon  a  temporal  ac- 
count, to  obey  this  precept  of  Christ,  of  "  loving  my  enemy." 
And  thus  much  for  the  first  general  argument  to  enforce  this 
duty,  grounded  upon  the  condition  of  my  enemy's  person. 

2.  A  second  motive  or  argument  to  the  same  shall  be  taken 
from  the  excellency  of  the  duty  itself.  It  is  the  highest  perfec- 
tion that  human  nature  can  reach  unto.  It  is  an  intimation  of 
the  divine  goodness,  which  shines  upon  the  heads  and  rains  upon 
the  fields  of  the  sinful  and  unjust;  and  heaps  blessings  upon 
those  who  are  busy  only  to  heap  up  wrath  to  themselves.  To 
love  an  enemy  is  to  stretch  humanity  as  far  as  it  will  go.  It  is 
an  heroic  action,  and  such  a  one  as  grows  not  upon  any  ordinary 
plebeian  spirit. 

The  excellency  of  the  duty  is  sufficiently  proclaimed  by  the 
difficulty  of  its  practice.  For  how  hard  is  it,  when  the  passions 
are  high,  and  the  sense  of  an  injury  quick,  and  power  ready,  for 
a  man  to  deny  himself  in  that  luscious  morsel  of  revenge !  to  do 
violence  to  himself,  instead  of  doing  it  to  his  enemy!  and  to 
command  down  the  strongest  principles  and  the  greatest  heats 
that  usually  act  the  soul  when  it  exerts  itself  upon  such  objects. 


OF  LOVING  OUR  ENEMIES. 


455 


And  the  difficulty  of  such  a  behaviour  is  no  less  declared  by- 
its  being  so  rarely  and  seldom  observed  in  men.  For  whom 
almost  can  we  see,  who  opens  his  arms  to  his  enemies,  or  puts  any 
other  bounds  to  his  hatred  of  him  but  satiety  or  disability ;  either 
because  it  is  even  glutted  with  having  done  so  much  against  him 
already,  or  wants  power  to  do  more  ?  Indeed  where  such  a  pitch 
of  love  is  found,  it  appears  glorious  and  glistering  in  the  eyes  of 
all,  and  much  admired  and  commended  it  is:  but  yet  for  the  most 
part  no  otherwise  than  as  we  see  men  admiring  and  commend- 
ing some  rare  piece  of  art,  which  they  never  intend  to  imitate, 
nor  so  much  as  to  attempt  an  imitation  of.  Nothing  certainly  but 
an  excellent  disposition  improved  by  a  mighty  grace,  can  bear  a 
man  up  to  this  perfection. 

3.  The  third  motive  or  argument,  shall  be  drawn  from  the 
great  examples  which  recommend  this  duty  to  us.  And  first  of 
all  from  that  of  our  blessed  Saviour,  whose  footsteps  in  the  paths 
of  love  we  may  trace  out  and  follow  by  his  own  blood.  He  gave 
his  life  for  sinners;  that  is,  for  enemies,  yea,  and  enemies  with 
the  highest  aggravation,  for  nothing  can  make  one  man  so  much 
an  enemy  to  another,  as  sin  makes  him  an  enemy  to  God. 

"I  say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies,"  says  Christ;  that  is,  I 
emphatically,  I  who  say  it  by  my  example  as  much  as  by  my 
precept.  For  Christ  "went  about  doing  good,"  Actsx.  38.  Yes, 
and  he  did  it  still  in  a  miracle.  Every  work  that  he  did  was 
equally  beneficial  and  miraculous.  And  the  place  where  he  did 
such  wonders  of  charity  was  Jerusalem,  a  city  red  with  the  blood 
of  God's  messengers,  and  paved  with  the  sculls  of  prophets,  a 
city  which  he  knew  would  shortly  complete  all  its  cruelty  and 
impiety  in  his  own  murder,  though  he  was  the  promised  and  long 
expected  Messias.  And  in  the  prologue  to  this  murder,  his  violent 
attachment,  when  one  of  his  enemies  was  wounded,  he  bestowed 
a  miracle  upon  his  cure :  so  tender  was  he  of  his  mortal  enemies. 
Like  a  lamb,  that  affords  wherewithal  both  to  feed  and  clothe  its 
very  butcher :  nay,  and  while  he  was  actually  hanging  upon  the 
cross,  he  uttered  a  passionate  prayer  for  the  forgiveness  of  his 
murderers:  so  desirous  was  he,  that  though  they  had  the  sole 
acting,  yet  that  he  himself  should  have  the  whole  feeling  of  their 
sin.  In  fine,  now  that  he  sits  at  the  right  hand  of  his  Father, 
triumphant,  and  governing  the  world,  from  whence  he  could  with 
much  more  ease  confound  his  most  daring  enemies,  than  the 
most  potent  grandee  can  crush  his  meanest  and  most  servile  de- 
pendants: yet  he  treats  them  with  all  the  methods  of  patience 
and  arts  of  reconcilement,  and  in  a  word,  endures  with  much 
long-suffering  those  vessels  of  wrath  who  seem  even  resolved  to 
perish,  and  obstinately  set  to  fit  themselves  for  destruction. 

And  now,  though,  after  such  an  example,  this  sort  of  argu- 
ment for  the  loving  our  enemies  can  be  carried  no  higher,  yet 
blessed  be  God,  that  is  not  so  wholly  exhausted  by  any  one  ex- 


456 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVII. 


ample,  but  that  it  may  be  carried  further ;  and  that  by  several 
instances,  which,  though  they  do  by  no  means  come  up  to  a  just 
comparison  with  it,  yet  ought  to  be  owned  for  noble  imitations 
of  it.  And  such  a  one  this  happy  day  affords  us,  a  day  conse- 
crated to  the  solemn  commemoration  of  the  nativity  and  return 
of  a  prince,  wTho,  having  been  most  barbarously  driven  out  of  his 
kingdoms,  and  afterwards  as  miraculously  restored  to  them, 
brought  with  him  the  greatest,  the  brightest,  and  most  stupend- 
ous instance  of  this  virtue ;  that,  next  to  what  has  been  observed 
of  our  Saviour  himself,  was  ever  yet  shown  by  man ;  Providence 
seeming  to  have  raised  up  this  prince,  as  it  had  done  his  father 
before  him,  to  give  the  world  a  glorious  demonstration,  that  the 
most  injured  of  men  might  be  the  most  merciful  of  men  too. 
For  after  the  highest  of  wrongs  and  contumelies  that  a  sovereign 
could  suffer  from  his  subjects;  scorning  all  revenge,  as  more  be- 
low him  than  the  very  persons  whom  he  might  have  been 
revenged  upon,  he  gloried  in  nothing  so  much  as  in  giving 
mercy  the  upper  hand  of  majesty  itself,  making  amnesty  his 
symbol  or  motto,  and  forgiveness  the  peculiar  signalizing  cha- 
racter of  his « reign;  herein  resembling  the  Almighty  himself  (as 
far  as  mortality  can),  who  seems  to  claim  a  greater  glory  for 
sparing  and  redeeming  man,  than  for  creating  him.  So  that,  in 
a  word,  as  our  Saviour  has  made  love  to  our  enemies  one  of  the 
chiefest  badges  of  our  religion,  so  our  king  has  almost  made  it  the 
very  mark  of  our  allegiance. 

Thus  even  to  a  prodigy  merciful  has  he  shown  himself ;  mer- 
ciful by  inclination,  and  merciful  by  extraction;  merciful  in  his 
example,  and  merciful  in  his  laws,  and  thereby  expressing  the 
utmost  dutifulness  of  a  son,  as  well  as  the  highest  magnanimity 
and  clemency  of  a  prince ;  while  he  is  still  making  that  good 
upon  the  throne  which  the  royal  martyr  his  father  had  enjoined 
upon  the  scaffold ;  where  he  died  pardoning  and  praying  for 
those  whose  malice  he  was  then  falling  a  victim  to:  and  this 
with  a  charity  so  unparalleled,  and  a  devotion  so  fervent,  that 
the  voice  of  his  prayers,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  drowned  the  very  cry 
of  his  blood.  But  I  love  not  to  dwell  upon  such  tragedies,  save 
only  to  illustrate  the  height  of  one  contrary  by  the  height  of 
another;  and  therefore  as  an  humble  follower  of  the  princely 
pattern  here  set  before  us,  I  shall  draw  a  veil  of  silence  over  all ; 
especially  since  it  surpasses  the  powrer  of  words  sufficiently  to  set 
forth,  either  the  greatness  of  the  crimes  forgiven,  or  of  the  mercy 
that  forgave  them. 

But  to  draw  to  a  close:  we  have  here  had  the  highest  and 
the  hardest  duty  perhaps  belonging  to  a  Christian,  both  recom- 
mended to  our  judgment  by  argument,  and  to  our  practice  by 
example ;  and  what  remains,  but  that  we  submit  our  judgment 
to  the  one,  and  govern  our  practice  by  the  other?  And  for  that 
purpose,  that  wTe  beg  of  God  an  assistance  equal  to  the  difficulty 


OF  LOVING  OUR  ENEMIES. 


457 


of  the  duty  enjoined ;  for  certainly  it  is  not  an  ordinary  measure 
of  grace  that  can  conquer  the  opposition  that  flesh  and  blood, 
and  corrupt  reason  itself,  after  all  its  convictions,  will  be  sure  to 
make  it.  The  greatest  miseries  that  befall  us  in  this  world  are 
from  enemies  j  and  so  long  as  men  naturally  desire  to  be  happy, 
it  will  be  naturally  as  hard  to  them  to  love  those  who  they 
know  are  the  grand  obstacles  to  their  being  so.  The  light  of 
nature  will  convince  a  man  of  many  duties  which  it  will  never 
enable  him  to  perform.  And  if  we  should  look  no  further  than 
bare  nature,  this  seems  to  be  one  cut  out  rather  for  our  admira- 
tion than  our  practice.  It  being  not  more  difficult,  (where  grace 
does  not  interpose),  "  to  cut  off  a  right  hand,"  than  to  reach  it 
heartily  to  the  relief  of  an  inveterate,  implacable  adversary. 
And  yet  God  expects  this  from  us,  and  that  so  peremptorily, 
that  he  has  made  the  pardon  of  our  enemies  the  indispensable 
condition  of  our  own.  And  therefore  that  wretch,  whosoever  he 
was,  who  being  pressed  hard  upon  his  deathbed  to  pardon  a 
notable  enemy  which  he  had,  answered,  "  that  if  he  died  indeed 
he  pardoned  him,  but  if  he  lived  he  would  be  revenged  on  him:" 
that  wretch,  I  say,  and  every  other  such  image  of  the  devil,  no 
doubt,  went  out  of  the  world  so,  that  he  had  better  never  have 
come  into  it.  In  fine,  after  we  have  said  the  utmost  upon  this 
subject  that  we  can,  I  believe  we  shall  find  this  the  result  of  all, 
that  he  is  a  happy  man  who  has  no  enemies,  and  he  a  much  hap- 
pier who  has  never  so  many,  and  can  pardon  them. 

God  preserve  us  from  the  one,  or  enable  us  to  do  the  other. 
To  whom  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise, 
might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 

Vol.  I.— 58  x     2  Q 


458 


SERMON  XXVIII. 

FALSE    FOUNDATIONS    REMOVED,   AND    TRUE    ONES    LAID   FOR  SUCH 
WISE    BUILDERS    AS    DESIGN    TO  BUILD    FOR  ETERNITY. 

[Preached  before  the  University  at  St.  Mary's,  Oxford,  December  10,  1661.] 

Matthew  vn.  26,  27. 

And  every  one  that  heareth  these  sayings  of  mine,  and  doeth  them 
not,  shall  be  likened  to  a  foolish  man,  which  built  his  house  upon 
the  sand :  and  the  rain  .descended,  and  the  floods  came,  and  the 
winds  blew,  and  beat  upon  that  house  ;  and  it  fell :  and  great  was 
the  fall  of  it. 

It  seems  to  have  been  all  along  the  prime  art  and  method  of 
the  great  enemy  of  souls,  not  being  able  to  root  the  sense  of  re- 
ligion out  of  men's  hearts,  yet  by  his  sophistries  and  delusions 
to  defeat  the  design  of  it  upon  their  lives ;  and,  either  by  empty 
notions  or  false  persuasions  to  take  them  off  from  the  main 
business  of  religion,  which  is  duty  and  obedience,  by  bribing  the 
conscience  to  rest  satisfied  with  something  less.  A  project  ex- 
tremely suitable  to  the  corrupt  nature  of  man;  whose  chief,  or 
rather  sole  quarrel  to  religion  is  the  severity  of  its  precepts,  and 
the  difficulty  of  their  practice.  So  that,  although  it  is  as  natural 
for  him  to  desire  to  be  happy  as  to  breathe,  yet  he  had  rather 
lose  and  miss  of  happiness  than  seek  it  in  the  way  of  holiness. 
Upon  which  account  nothing  speaks  so  full  and  home  to  the  very 
inmost  desires  of  his  soul,  as  those  doctrines  and  opinions,  which 
would  persuade  him,  that  it  may  and  shall  be  well  with  him 
hereafter,  without  any  necessity  of  his  living  well  here.  Which 
great  mystery  of  iniquity  being  carefully  managed  by  the  utmost 
skill  of  the  tempter,  and  greedily  embraced  by  a  man's  own 
treacherous  affections,  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  false  religions, 
and  eats  out  the  very  heart  and  vitals  of  the  true.  For  in  the 
strength  of  this,  some  hope  to  be  saved  by  believing  well ;  some 
by  meaning  well ;  some  by  paying  well ;  and  some  by  shedding 
a  few  insipid  tears,  and  uttering  a  few  hard  words  against  those 
sins  which  they  have  no  other  controversy  with,  but  that  they 
were  so  unkind  as  to  leave  the  sinner  before  he  was  willing  to 
leave  them.  For  all  this  men  can  well  enough  submit  to,  as  not 
forcing  them  to  abandon  any  of  their  beloved  lusts.  And  there- 
fore they  will  not  think  themselves  hardly  dealt  with,  though 
you  require  faith  of  them,  if  you  will  but  dispense  with  good 
works.  They  will  abound,  and  even  overflow  with  good  inten- 
tions, if  you  will  allow  them  in  quite  contrary  actions.  And 


FALSE  FOUNDATIONS  REMOVED,  AND  TRUE  ONES  LAID.  459 

you  shall  not  want  for  sacrifice,  if  that  may  compound  for  obe- 
dience ;  nor  lastly,  will  they  grudge  to  find  money,  if  somebody 
else  will  find  merit.  But  to  live  well,  and  to  do  well,  are  things 
of  too  hard  a  digestion. 

Accordingly  our  Saviour,  who  well  knew  all  these  false  hopes 
and  fallacious  reasonings  of  the  heart  of  man  (which  is  never  so 
subtile  as  when  it  would  deceive  itself ),  tells  his  hearers,  that  all 
these  little  trifling  inventions  will  avail  them  nothing,  and  that 
in  the  business  of  religion,  and  the  great  concern  of  souis,  all 
that  is  short  of  obedience  and  a  good  life,  is  nothing  but  trick 
and  evasion,  froth  and  folly ;  and  consequently  that  if  they  build 
upon  such  deceitful  grounds,  and  with  such  slight  materials,  they 
must  and  can  expect  no  other,  than,  after  all  their  cost  and  pains, 
to  have  their  house  fall  upon  their  heads,  and  so  perish  in  the  ruin. 

And  with  this  terrible  application  in  these  two  last  verses, 
which  I  have  pitched  upon  for  my  text,  he  concludes  his  divine 
sermon  and  discourse  from  the  mount. 

The  words  of  the  text  being  too  plain  and  easy  to  need  any  nice 
or  large  explication,  I  shall  manage  the  discussion  of  them  in  these 
four  particulars. 

I.  In  showing  the  reasons  upon  which  I  conclude  practice  or 
obedience,  in  the  great  business  of  a  man's  eternal  happiness,  to 
be  the  best  and  surest  foundation  for  him  to  build  upon. 

II.  In  showing  the  false  foundations  upon  which  many  build, 
and  accordingly  in  time  of  trial  miscarry. 

III.  In  showing  the  causes  why  such  miscarry  and  fall  away  in 
time  of  trial  or  temptation. 

IV.  And  lastly,  In  showing  wherein  the  fatal  greatness  of  their 
fall  consists. 

I.  And  for  the  first  of  these,  viz.  to  show  the  reasons  why  prac- 
tice or  obedience  is  the  best  and  surest  foundation  (still  supposing  it 
bottomed  upon  the  merits  of  Christ)  for  a  man  to  build  his  design 
for  heaven  and  the  hopes  of  his  salvation  upon :  I  shall  mention 
three. 

First,  Because,  according  to  the  ordinary  way  and  economy  of 
God's  working  upon  the  hearts  of  men,  nothing  but  practice  can 
change  our  corrupt  nature;  and  practice  continued  and  per- 
severed in,  by  the  grace  of  God  will.  We  all  acknowledge 
(that  is,  all  who  are  not  wise  above  the  articles  of  our  church) 
that  there  is  a  universal  stain  and  depravation  upon  man's  nature, 
that  does  incapacitate  him  for  the  fruition  and  infinitely  pure 
converse  of  God.  The  removal  of  which  cannot  be  effected  but 
by  introducing  the  contrary  habit  of  holiness,  which  shall  by 
degrees  expel  and  purge  out  the  other.  And  the  only  way  to 
produce  a  habit,  is  by  the  frequent  repetition  of  congenial 
actions.  Every  pious  action  leaves  a  certain  tincture  or  disposi- 
tion upon  the  soul,  which  being  seconded  by  actions  of  the  same 


460  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  XXVIII. 

nature,  whether  by  the  superaddition  of  new  degrees,  or  a  more 
radicate  fixation  of  the  same,  grows  at  length  into  a  habit  or 
quality,  of  the  force  and  energy  of  a  second  nature. 

I  confess  the  habit  of  holiness,  finding  no  principle  of  produc- 
tion in  a  nature  wholly  corrupt,  must  needs  be  produced  by 
supernatural  infusion,  and  consequently  proceed,  not  from  acqui- 
sition, but  gift.  It  must  be  brought  into  the  soul,  it  cannot 
grow  or  spring  out  of  it.  But  then  we  must  remember  that 
most  excellent  and  true  rule  of  the  schools,  that  habitus  infusi 
obtinentur  per  modum  acquisitorum.  It  is  indeed  a  supernatural 
effect,  but,  as  I  may  so  speak,  wrought  in  a  natural  way.  The 
Spirit  of  God  imitating  the  course  of  nature,  even  then  when  it 
works  something  above  it. 

A  person  in  the  state  of  nature,  or  unregeneracy,  cannot,  by 
the  sole  strength  of  his  most  improved  performances,  acquire  a 
habit  of  true  grace  and  noliness.  But,  as  in  the  rain,  it  is  not 
the  bare  water  that  fructifies,  but  a  secret  spirit,  or  nitre  descend- 
ing with  it  and  joined  to  it,  that  has  this  virtue,  and  produces 
this  effect :  so  in  the  duties  of  a  mere  natural  man,  there  is  some- 
times a  hidden,  divine  influence,  that  keeps  pace  with  those 
actions,  and  together  with  each  performance,  imprints  a  holy  dis- 
position upon  the  soul;  which  after  a  long  series  of  the  like 
actions  influenced  by  the  same  divine  principle,  comes  at  length 
to  be  of  that  force  and  firmness  as  to  outgrow  and  work  out  the 
contrary  qualities  of  inherent  corruption. 

We  have  an  illustration  of  this,  though  not  a  parallel  instance, 
in  natural  actions,  which  by  frequency  imprint  a  habit  or  per- 
manent facility  of  acting,  upon  the  agent.  Godliness  is  in  some 
sense  an  art  or  mystery,  and  we  all  know  that  it  is  practice  chiefly 
that  makes  the  artist. 

Secondly,  A  second  reason  for  our  assertion  is,  because  action 
is  the  highest  perfection  and  drawing  forth  of  the  utmost  power, 
vigour,  and  activity  of  man's  nature.  God  is  pleased  to  vouch- 
safe the  best  that  he  can  give,  only  to  the  best  that  we  can  do. 
An  action  is  undoubtedly  our  best,  because  the  most  difficult; 
for  in  such  cases,  worth  and  difficulty  are  inseparable  companions. 
The  properest  and  most  raised  conception  that  we  have  of  God 
is,  that  he  is  a  pure  act,  a  perpetual,  incessant  motion.  And 
next  to  him,  in  the  rank  of  beings,  are  the  angels,  as  approaching 
nearest  to  him  in  this  perfection:  being  all  flame  and  agility, 
ministering  spirits,  always  busy  and  upon  the  wing,  for  the  execu- 
tion of  his  great  commands  about  the  government  of  the  world. 
And  indeed  doing  is  nothing  else  but  the  noblest  improvement  of 
being.  It  is  not  (as  some  nice  speculators  make  it)  an  airy, 
diminutive  entity,  or  accident  distinct  from  the  substance  of  the 
soul :  but  to  define  it  more  suitably  to  itself,  and  to  the  soul  too, 
action  is  properly  the  soul  in  its  best  posture. 

Thirdly,  A  third  reason  is,  because  the  main  end,  drift,  and 


FALSE  FOUNDATIONS  REMOVED,  AND  TRUE  ONES  LAID.  461 

design  of  religion  is  the  active  part  of  it.  Profession  is  only  the 
badge  of  a  Christian,  belief  the  beginning,  but  practice  is  the 
nature,  and  custom  the  perfection.  For  it  is  this  which  trans- 
lates Christianity  from  a  bare  notion  into  a  real  business ;  from 
useless  speculations  into  substantial  duties ;  and  from  an  idea  in 
the  brain  into  an  existence  in  the  life.  An  upright  conversation 
is  the  bringing  of  the  general  theorems  of  religion  into  the  par- 
ticular instances  of  solid  experience ;  and  if  it  were  not  for  this, 
religion  would  exist  no  where  but  in  the  bible.  The  grand 
deciding  question  at  the  last  day  will  be,  not  What  have  you  said  ? 
or,  What  have  you  believed  ?  but,  What  have  you  done  more  than 
others  ? 

But  that  the  very  life  of  religion  consists  in  practice,  will 
appear  yet  further  from  those  subordinate  ends  to  which  it  is 
designed  in  this  world,  and  which  are  as  really,  though  not  as 
principally,  the  purpose  of  it,  as  the  utmost  attainment  of  the 
beatific  vision,  and  the  very  last  period  of  our  salvation ;  and 
these  are  two. 

First,  The  honouring  of  God  before  the  world.  God  will  not 
have  his  worship,  like  his  nature,  invisible.  Next  to  authority 
itself,  is  the  pomp  and  manifestation  of  it;  and  to  be  acknow- 
ledged is  something  more  than  to  be  obeyed.  For  what  is  sove- 
reignty unknown,  or  majesty  unobserved  ?  What  glory  were  it 
for  the  sun  to  direct  the  affairs,  if  he  did  not  also  attract  the 
eyes  of  the  world  ?  It  is  his  open  and  universal  light,  more  than 
his  occult  influence,  that  we  love  and  admire  him  for.  Religion, 
if  confined  to  the  heart,  is  not  so  much  entertained,  as  impri- 
soned :  that  indeed  is  to  be  its  fountain,  but  not  its  channel. 
The  water  arises  in  one  place,  but  it  streams  in  another;  and 
fountains  would  not  be  so  much  valued  if  they  did  not  produce 
rivers. 

One  great  end  of  religion  is  to  proclaim  and  publish  God's 
sovereignty,  and  there  is  no  such  way  to  cause  men  to  glorify  our 
heavenly  Father,  as  by  causing  our  light  to  shine  before  them ; 
which  I  am  sure  it  cannot  do,  but  as  it  beams  through  our 
good  works.  When  a  man  leads  a  pious  and  good  life,  every 
hour  he  lives  is  virtually  an  act  of  worship.  But  if  inward 
grace  is  not  exerted  and  drawn  forth  into  outward  practice,  men 
have  no  inspection  into  our  hearts,  to  discern  it  there.  And  let 
this  be  fixed  upon  as  a  standing  principle,  that  it  is  not  possible 
for  us  to  honour  God  before  men,  but  only  by  those  acts  of  wor- 
ship that  are  observable  by  men.  It  is  our  faith  indeed  that 
recognizes  him  for  our  God,  but  it  is  our  obedience  only,  that 
declares  him  to  be  our  Lord. 

Secondly,  The  other  end  of  religion  in  this  world,  is  the  good 
and  mutual  advantage  of  mankind  in  the  way  of  society.  And 
herein  did  the  admirable  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God  appear, 
that  he  was  pleased  to  calculate  and  contrive  such  an  instrument 

2q2 


462 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVIII. 


to  govern,  as  might  also  benefit,  the  world.  God  planted  religion 
amongst  men  as  a  tree  of  life ;  which,  though  it  was  to  spring 
upwards  directly  to  himself,  yet  it  was  to  spread  its  branches 
to  the  benefit  of  all  below. 

There  is  hardly  any  necessity  or  convenience  of  mankind,  but 
what  is  in  a  large  measure  served  and  provided  for  by  this  great 
blessing  (as  well  as  business)  of  the  world,  religion.  And  he 
who  is  a  Christian  is  not  only  a  better  man,  but  also  a  better 
neighbour,  a  better  subject,  and  a  truer  friend,  than  he  that  is 
not  so.  For  was  any  thing  more  for  the  good  of  mankind,  than 
to  forgive  injuries,  to  love  and  caress  our  mortal  adversaries,  and 
instead  of  our  enemy,  to  hate  only  our  revenge  ? 

Of  such  a  double,  yet  benign  aspect  is  Christianity  both  to 
God  and  man ;  like  incense,  while  it  ascends  to  heaven  it  per- 
fumes all  about  it ;  at  the  same  time  both  instrumental  to  God's 
worship,  and  the  worshipper's  refreshment:  as  it  holds  up  one 
hand  in  supplication,  so  it  reaches  forth  the  other  in  benefaction. 

But  now,  if  it  be  one  great  end  of  religion,  thus  to  contribute 
to  the  support  and  benefit  of  society,  surely  it  must  needs  con- 
sist in  the  active  piety  of  our  lives,  not  in  empty  thoughts  and 
fruitless  persuasions.  For  what  can  one  man  be  the  better  for 
what  another  thinks  or  believes  ?  When  a  poor  man  begs  an 
alms  of  me,  can  I  believe  my  bread  into  his  mouth,  or  my  money 
into  his  hand  ?  Believing  without  doing  is  a  very  cheap  and 
easy,  but  withal  a  very  worthless  way  of  being  religious. 

And  thus  having  given  the  reasons,  why  the  active  part  of  reli- 
gion is  the  only  sure  bottom  for  us  to  build  upon,  I  now  pro- 
ceed to  the 

II.  Thing  proposed,  namely,  to  show  those  false  and  sandy 
foundations  which  many  venture  to  build  upon,  and  are  accordingly 
deceived  by.  Which  though  they  are  exceedingly  various,  and 
according  to  the  multiplicity  of  men's  tempers,  businesses,  and 
occasions,  almost  infinite,  and  like  the  sand  mentioned  in  my 
text,  not  only  infirm,  but  numberless  also  ;  yet  according  to  the 
best  of  my  poor  judgment  and  observation,  I  shall  reduce  them 
to  these  three  heads.  The 

First  of  which  is  a  naked,  unoperative  faith.  Ask  but  some 
upon  what  grounds  they  look  to  be  saved,  and  they  will  answer, 
"  Because  they  firmly  believe,  that  through  the  merits  of  Christ 
their  sins  are  forgiven  them."  But  since  it  is  hard  for  a  man  in 
his  right  wits  to  be  confident  of  a  thing  which  he  does  not  at  all 
know;  such  as  are  more  cautious  will  tell  you  further,  that  " to 
desire  to  believe  is  to  believe,  and  to  desire  to  repent  is  to  repent." 
But  as  this  is  absurd  and  impossible,  since  no  act  can  be  its  own 
object  without  being  not  itself;  forasmuch  as  the  act  and  the 
object  are  distinct  things ;  and  consequently  a  desire  to  believe 
can  no  more  be  belief,  than  a  desire  to  be  saved  can  be  salvation ; 


FALSE  FOUNDATIONS  REMOVED,  AND  TRUE  ONES  LAID.  463 

so  it  is  further  intolerable  upon  this  account,  that  it  quite  dispirits 
religion,  by  placing  it  in  languid,  abortive  velleities,  and  so  cuts 
the  nerves  of  all  endeavour,  by  rating  glory  at  a  bare  desire,  and 
eternity  at  a  wish. 

But  because  the  poison  of  this  opinion  does  so  easily  enter, 
and  so  strangely  intoxicate,  I  shall  presume  to  give  an  antidote 
against  it  in  this  one  observation,  namely,  that  all  along  the 
scripture,  where  justification  is  ascribed  to  faith  alone,  there  the 
word  faith  is  still  used  by  a  metonymy  of  the  antecedent  for  the 
consequent,  and  does  not  signify  abstractedly  a  mere  persuasion, 
but  the  obedience  of  a  holy  life  performed  in  the  strength  and 
virtue  of  such  a  persuasion.  Not  that  this  justifies  meritoriously 
by  any  inherent  worth  or  value  in  itself,  but  instrumentally  as  a 
condition  appointed  by  God  upon  the  performance  of  which,  he 
freely  imputes  to  us  Christ's  righteousness,  which  is  the  sole, 
proper,  and  formal  cause  of  our  justification.  So  that  that 
instrumentality,  which  some,  in  the  business  of  justification, 
attribute  to  one  single  act  of  credence,  is  by  this  ascribed  to  the 
whole  aggregate  series  of  gospel  obedience,  as  being  that  which 
gives  us  a  title  to  a  perfect  righteousness  without  us,  by  which 
alone  we  stand  justified  before  God.  And  this  seems  with  full 
accord  both  to  scripture  and  reason  to  state  the  business  of  justi- 
fication, by  an  equal  poise  both  against  the  arrogant  assertions  of 
self-justiciaries  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  wild  opinions  of  the 
Antinomians  on  the  other. 

But  whether  the  obedience  of  a  pious  life,  performed  out  of  a 
belief  or  persuasion  of  the  truth  of  the  gospel,  ought  to  pass  for 
that  faith  which  justifies,  or  only  for  the  effect  or  consequent  of 
it,  yet  certainly  it  is  such  an  effect  as  issues  by  a  kind  of  conna- 
tural, constant  efficiency  and  result  from  it.  So  that  how  much 
soever  they  are  distinguishable  by  their  respective  actions  from 
one  another,  they  are  absolutely  inseparable  by  a  mutual  and  a 
necessary  connexion :  it  belonging  no  less  to  the  faith  which  justi- 
fies to  be  operative,  than  to  justify :  indeed  upon  an  essential 
account,  more ;  forasmuch  as  it  is  operative  by  its  nature,  but 
justifies  only  by  institution. 

Secondly,  The  second  false  ground  which  some  build  upon,  is 
a  fond  reliance  upon  the  goodness  of  their  heart,  and  the  honesty 
of  their  intention.  A  profitable,  and  therefore  a  very  prevailing 
fallacy ;  and  such  a  one  as  the  devil  seldom  uses  but  with  suc- 
cess ;  it  being  one  of  his  old  and  long  experimented  fetches,  by 
the  pretences  of  a  good  heart,  to  supplant  the  necessity  of  a  good 
life.  But  to  allege  the  honesty  of  the  mind  against  the  charge 
of  an  evil  course,  is  a  protestation  against  the  fact,  which  does 
not  excuse,  but  enhance  its  guilt.  As  it  would  look  like  a  very 
strange  and  odd  commendation  of  a  tree  to  apologize  for  the 
sourness  of  its  fruit,  by  pleading  that  all  its  gGodness  lay  in  the 
root. 


464 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVIII. 


But  in  the  discourses  of  reason,  such  is  the  weakness  and 
shortness  of  its  reach,  that  it  seldom  suggests  arguments  a 
priori  for  any  thing,  but  by  a  low  and  humble  gradation  creeps 
from  the  effect  up  to  the  cause,  because  these  first  strike  and 
alarm  the  senses ;  and  therefore  St.  James  speaks  as  good  philo- 
sophy as  divinity  when  he  says,  James  ii.  18,  "  Show  me  thy 
faith  by  thy  works."  Every  action  being  the  most  lively  por- 
traiture and  impartial  expression  of  its  efficient  principle,  as  the 
complexion  is  the  best  comment  upon  the  constitution:  for  in 
natural  productions  there  is  no  hypocrisy. 

Only  we  must  observe  here,  that  good  and  evil  actions  bear  a 
very  different  relation  to  their  respective  principles.  As  it  is 
between  truth  and  falsehood  in  argumentation,  so  it  is  between 
good  and  evil  in  matters  of  practice.  For  though  from  an  arti- 
ficial contrivance  of  false  principles  or  premises  may  emerge  a 
true  conclusion,  yet  from  true  premises  cannot  ensue  a  false :  so, 
though  an  evil  heart  may  frame  itself  to  the  doing  of  an  action  in 
its  kind  or  nature  good,  yet  a  renewed,  sanctified  principle  cannot 
of  itself  design  actions  really  vicious.  The  reason  of  which  is, 
because  the  former,  in  such  a  case,  acts  upon  a  principle  of  dis- 
simulation ;  and  no  man  by  dissembling  affects  to  appear  worse 
than  he  is,  but  better.  But  all  this  while,  I  speak  not  of  a  single 
action,  but  of  a  conversation  or  course  of  acting :  for  a  pious  man 
may  do  an  evil  action  upon  temptation  or  surprise,  but  not  by 
the  tenor  of  his  standing  principles  and  resolutions.  But  when 
a  man's  sin  is  his  business  and  the  formed  purpose  of  his  life,  and 
his  piety  shrinks  only  into  meaning  and  intention ;  when  he  tells 
me  his  heart  is  right  with  God,  while  his  hand  is  in  my  pocket, 
he  upbraids  my  reason,  and  outfaces  the  common  principles  of 
natural  discourse  with  an  impudence  equal  to  their  absurdity. 

This,  therefore,  I  affirm,  that  he  who  places  his  Christianity 
only  in  his  heart,  and  his  religion  in  his  meaning,  has  fairly 
secured  himself  against  a  discovery  in  case  he  should  have  none, 
but  yet,  for  all  that,  shall  at  the  last  find  his  portion  with  those 
who  indeed  have  none.  And  the  truth  is,  those  who  are  thus 
intentionally  pious,  do  in  a  very  ill  and  untoward  sense  verify 
that  philosophical  maxim,  that  what  they  so  much  pretend  to  be 
chief  and  first  in  their  intention,  is  always  last  (if  at  all)  in  the 
execution. 

Thirdly,  The  third  and  last  false  ground  that  I  shall  men- 
tion, upon  which  some  men  build  to  their  confusion,  is  party  and 
singularity.  If  an  implicit  faith  be  (as  some  say)  the  property  of 
a  Roman  catholic,  then  I  am  sure  popery  may  be  found  where 
the  name  of  papist  is  abhorred.  For  what  account  can  some  give 
of  their  religion,  or  of  that  assurance  of  their  salvation  (which 
they  so  much  boast  of),  but  that  they  have  wholly  resigned  them- 
selves up  to  the  guidance  and  dictates  of  those  who  have  the  front 
and  boldness  to  usurp  the  title  of  the  godly.    To  be  of  such  a 


FALSE  FOUNDATIONS  REMOVED,  AND  TRUE  ONES  LAID.  465 

party,  of  such  a  name,  nay,  of  such  a  sneaking  look,  is  to  some 
the  very  spirit  and  characteristic  mark  of  Christianity. 

See  what  St.  Paul  himself  built  upon  before  his  conversion  to 
Christ,  Acts  xxvi.  5:  "I  was,"  says  he,_"  after  the  strictest  sect 
of  our  religion  a  Pharisee."  So  that  it  was  the  reputation  of  the 
sect,  upon  which  St.  Paul  then  embarked  his  salvation.  Now 
the  nature  of  this  fraternity  or  sect  we  may  learn  from  the 
origination  of  their  name  -  Pharisee ;  it  being  derived  from  cnc 
parasch,  separavit,  discrevit,  whence  in  Greek  they  were  called 
d^topisjutvot,*  separati.  So  that  the  words  amount  to  this,  that 
St.  Paul,  before  he  was  a  Christian,  was  a  rigid  separatist. 

But  singularity  is  not  sincerity,  though  too  often  and  mis- 
chievously mistaken  for  it ;  and  as  a  house  built  upon  the  sand  is 
likely  to  be  ruined  by  storms ;  so  a  house  built  out  of  the  road  is 
exposed  to  the  invasion  of  robbers,  and  wants  both  the  con- 
venience and  assistance  of  society ;  Christ  is  not  therefore  called 
the  corner  stone  in  the  spiritual  building,  as  if  he  intended  that 
his  church  should  consist  only  of  corners,  or  be  driven  into  them. 
There  is  a  by-path  as  well  as  a  broad-way  to  destruction.  And 
it  both  argues  the  nature,  and  portends  the  doom  of  chaff,  upon 
agitation  to  separate  and  divide  from  the  wheat.  But  to  such  as 
venture  their  eternal  interest  upon  such  a  bottom  I  shall  only 
suggest  these  two  words. 

First,  That  admitting,  but  not  granting,  that  the  party  which 
they  adhere  to  may  be  truly  pious ;  yet  the  piety  of  the  party 
cannot  sanctify  its  proselytes.  A  church  may  be  properly  called 
holy,  when  yet  that  holiness  does  not  diffuse  itself  to  each  par- 
ticular member ;  the  reason  of  which  is  because  the  whole  may 
receive  denomination  from  a  quality  inherent  only  in  some  of  its 
parts.    Company  may  occasion,  but  it  cannot  transfuse  holiness. 

No  man's  righteousness  but  Christ's  alone  can  be  imputed  to 
another.  To  rate  a  man  by  the  nature  of  his  companions,  is  a 
rule  frequent  indeed,  but  not  infallible.  Judas  was  as  much  a 
wretch  amongst  the  apostles,  as  amongst  the  priests.  And  there- 
fore it  is  but  a  poor  argument  for  a  man  to  derive  his  saintship 
from  the  virtues  of  the  society  he  belongs  to,  and  to  conclude 
himself  no  weed,  only  because  he  grows  amongst  the  corn. 

Secondly,  Such  an  adhesion  to  a  party-  carries  in  it  a  strong 
suspicion  and  tang  of  the  rankest  of  all  ill  qualities,  spiritual 
pride.    There  are  two  things  natural  almost  to  all  men : 

First,  A  desire  of  preeminence  in  any  perfection,  but  especially 
religious.  Secondly,  A  spirit  of  opposition  or  contradiction  to 
such  as  are  not  of  their  own  mind  or  way.  Now  both  these  are 
eminently  gratified  by  a  man's  listing  himself  of  a  party  in  reli- 

*  Qapioaloi  ol  Eflp|M*4pMI  d<po>ptfffitix>i,  rapa  to  p.cpi\tiv  <at  di^opi^tiv  cavroii  rtov  aXXcov  drrdvr(i)i> , 
Suidas.  Again.  <t>ap«raios  dipupiaptivo;,  ixcpcpiciitvos,  Ka6ap6$,  Hesych.  So  that  the  Pharisee* 
properly  were,  and  might  be  called  the  Jewish  Cathari,  or  Puritans. 

Vol.  I.— 59 


466 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVIII. 


gion.  And  I  doubt  not  but  some  are  more  really  proud  of  the 
affected  sordidness  of  a  pretended  mortification,  than  others  are 
of  the  greatest  affluence  and  splendour  of  life :  and  that  many  who 
call  the  execution  of  law  and  justice  persecution,  do  yet  suffer  it 
with  a  higher  and  more  pleasing  relish  of  pride,  than  others  can 
inflict  it.  For  it  is  not  true  zeal  rising  from  a  hearty  concern- 
ment for  religion,  but  an  ill,  restless,  cross  humour,  which  is  pro- 
voked with  smart,  and  quickened  with  opposition.  The  godly 
party  is  little  better  than  a  contradiction  in  the  adjunct,  for  he 
who  is  truly  godly,  is  humble  and  peaceable,  and  will  neither 
make  nor  be  of  a  party,  according  to  the  common  sense  of  that 
word.  Let  such  pretenders  therefore  suspect  the  sandiness  and 
hollowness  of  their  foundation ;  and  know,  that  such  imitators  of 
Corah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,  build  upon  the  same  ground  upon 
which  they  stood,  and  into  which  they  sunk.  And  certainly  that 
man's  condition  is  very  unsafe,  who  accounts  his  sin  his  perfec- 
tion, and  so  makes  the  object  of  his  repentance,  the  ground  of 
his  salvation. 

And  thus  I  have  discovered  some  of  those  false  and  deceiving 
grounds  upon  which  many  bottom  their  eternal  state,  and  by 
which  they  think  themselves  in  the  direct  wTay  to  life  and  happi- 
ness, while  God  knows,  they  are  in  the  high  and  broad  road  to 
perdition.    Pass  we  now  to  the 

III.  Thing  proposed,  which  is  to  show  whence  it  is  that  such  ill 
founded  structures  are,  upon  trial,  sure  to  fall.  For  the  demonstra- 
tion of  which  we  must  observe,  that  to  the  violent  dissolution  of 
any  thing  two  things  concur :  first,  an  assault  or  impression  from 
without ;  secondly,  an  inherent  weakness  within.  One  is  the  active, 
the  other  the  passive  principle  of  every  change.  For  so  much  as 
there  is  of  weakness,  there  is  of  non-resistance,  and  so  far  as  any 
thing  yields  or  not  resists,  the  contrary  impression  enters,  and  by 
degrees  weakens,  and  at  length  destroys  the  subsistence  of  the 
thing  opposed. 

As  for  the  first  of  these,  the  force  and  opposition  from  without: 
it  comes  from  the  o  novr^b^  the  true  common  enemy,  the  im- 
placable, insatiable  devourer  of  souls,  the  devil ;  who  will  be  sure 
to  plant  his  engines  of  battery  against  every  spiritual  building 
wThich  does  but  look  towards  heaven.  The  opposition  he  makes, 
our  Saviour  here  emphatically  describes  by  the  winds  blowing, 
the  rain  descending,  and  the  floods  coming,  which  is  not  an  insig- 
nificant rhetorication  of  the  same  thing  by  several  expressions 
(like  some  pulpit  bombast  made  only  to  measure  an  hour-glass), 
but  an  exact  description  of  those  three  methods  by  which  this 
assault  of  the  devil  prevails  and  becomes  victorious. 

1.  The  first  is,  that  it  is  sudden  and  unexpected.  The  devil 
usually  comes  upon  the  soul  as  he  fell  from  heaven,  like 
lightning.     And  he  shows  no  small  art  and  policy  by  his  so 


FALSE  FOUNDATION'S  REMOVED,  AND  TRUE  ONES  LAID.  467 

doing:  for  quickness  prevents  preparation,  and  so  enervates 
opposition.  It  is  observed  of  Caesar,  that  he  did  plurima  et  max- 
ima bella  sola  celeritate  confcere :  so  that  almost  in  all  his  expedi- 
tions he  seldom  came  to  any  place,  but  his  coming  was  before  the 
report  of  it.  And  we  shall  find  that  the  Roman  eagles  owed 
most  of  their  great  conquests  as  much  to  their  swiftness  as 
to  their  force.  And  the  same  is  here  the  devil's  method  in  his 
warfare  against  souls.  Upon  which  account  also  the  same 
character  that  Tully  gave  the  forementioned  Ceesar  in  his 
epistles  to  Atticus,  may  much  more  fitly  agree  to  him,  that  he  is 
monstrum  hon  ibile  celeritatis  et  vigilantice.  He  flies  to  his  prev, 
he  fetches  his  blow  quick  and  sure ;  he  can  shoot  a  temptation  in 
a  glance,  and  convey  the  poison  of  his  suggestions  quicker  than 
the  agitation  of  thought,  or  the  strictures  of  fancy.  It  is  the 
sudden  trip  in  wrestling  that  fetches  a  man  to  the  ground. 

Thus  St.  Peter,  that  giant  in  faith,  was  shamefully  foiled  by  a 
sudden  though  weak  assault.  While  he  sits  in  the  high  priest's 
hall  warming  himself  and  thinking  nothing,  one  confounds  him 
with  this  quick  unexpected  charge,  Matt.  xxvi.  69,  "Thou  also 
wast  with  Jesus  of  Galilee."  The  surprise  of  the  onset  prevented 
his  deliberating  powers  from  rallying  together  those  succours  of 
habitual  grace,  which,  being  alarmed  by  a  more  gradual  approach 
of  the  temptation,  would  have  easily  repulsed  it.  But  the  devil 
will  never  caution  the  soul  into  a  posture  of  defence  by  present- 
ing the  temptation  at  a  distance.  He  bites  and  shows  his  teeth 
at  the  same  instant ;  and  so  prevents  the  foresight  of  the  eye,  by 
exceeding  it  in  quickness. 

2.  His  assaults  are  furious  and  impetuous.  Temptations  come 
very  often,  as  the  devil  himself  is  said  to  do,  in  a  storm.  And  a 
gust  of  wind,  as  it  rises  on  a  sudden,  so  it  rushes  with  vehemence. 
And  if  the  similitude  does  not  yet  speak  high  enough ;  to  the 
violence  of  the  storm,  the  text  adds  the  prevailing  rage  of  a  flood. 
And  we  know  the  tyranny  of  this  element  when  it  once  embodies 
into  a  torrent,  and  runs  with  the  united  force  of  many  waters ; 
it  scorns  all  confinement,  and  tears  down  the  proudest  opposition, 
as  Virgil  fully  describes  it : 

1  Rapidus  montsno  flumine  torrens, 

Sternit  agros.  sternit  sata  lseta,  boumque  labores, 
Praecipitesque  trahit  sylvas  " 

"With  a  parallel  encounter  does  the  devil  draw  upon  the  fortifica- 
tions of  outward  civility,  good  desires,  imperfect  resolutions,  and 
the  like,  which  are  no  more  able  to  abide  the  shock  of  such  bat- 
teries, than  a  morning  dew  is  more  able  to  bear  the  scorching 
fury  of  the  sun  ;  or  than  such  little  banks  as  children  use  to  raise 
in  sport,  are  able  to  stem  or  stand  against  the  outrageous  break- 
ing in  of  the  sea.  Every  temptation  has  this  property  of  water, 
either  to  insinuate  or  to  force  its  way. 

3.  The  devil  in  his  assaults  is  restless  and  importunate.  The 


468 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVIII. 


wind  is  here  said  not  only  to  blow,  but  emphatically  to  beat  upon 
the  house.  And  as  in  a  tempest  the  blasts  are  both  sudden  and 
violent  in  their  onset,  so  they  are  frequent  in  their  returns.  Im- 
portunity is  the  only  coaction  that  the  will  knows.  Where  the 
devil  cannot  persuade,  he  will,  if  he  can,  even  weary  into  a  con- 
sent. It  is  often  charging  that  wins  the  field.  The  tempter,  if 
he  is  repulsed  in  a  battle,  will  lengthen  his  assault  into  a  siege : 
for  the  mind  may  have  often  a  sudden  heat  of  valour  to  repel 
the  one,  and  yet  not  constancy  to  endure  the  other.  A  rejected 
proposal  shall  be  reinforced  with  continual  fresh  supplies  of  more 
urgent  and  repeated  persuasions. 

See  him  thrice  renewing  the  combat  with  our  Saviour;  and 
indeed  after  he  has  had  the  impudence  to  begin  a  temptation, 
it  is  always  his  prudence  to  pursue  it.  Otherwise,  opposition 
only  attempted  serves  not  for  conquest,  but  admonition.  His  as- 
saults are  here  said  to  come  like  the  rain,  and  the  rain  never  falls 
in  one  single  drop ;  and  yet  if  it  die1 ,  even  a  drop  would  hollow 
and  dig  its  way  by  frequency  and  assiduity. 

It  is  observed  by  the  learned  Verulam,  what  advantage  bold 
and  importunate  men  have  over  others,  nay,  even  so  as  to  prevail 
upon  men  of  wisdom  and  resolution,  because,  as  he  excellently  notes, 
the  wisest  men  have  their  weak  times :  and  then  I  infer,  that  he 
who  is  importunate  at  all  times,  must  needs  catch  them  at  those. 

So  when  the  tempter  continues  his  importunity  and  siege  about 
a  soul,  he  has  all  these  advantages  over  it ;  as  to  view  its  strong 
holds,  and  to  spy  where  they  are  least  fortified;  to  observe  the 
intervals  and  cessations  of  duty;  when  devotion  ebbs,  and  the 
spiritual  guards  draw  off;  when  the  affections  revel,  and  slide 
into  a  posture  of  security ;  and  then  to  renew  and  bring  on  the 
assault  afresh,  and  so  to  force  a  victorious  entrance  for  his 
temptations. 

It  is  here,  as  with  the  Greeks  before  Troy ;  it  was  not  their 
armies,  nor  their  Achilles,  but  their  ten  years'  siege  that  got  the 
conquest.  What  a  violent  flame  cannot  presently  melt  down,  a 
constant,  though  a  gentle  heat  will  at  length  exhale.  It  is  our 
known  duty  to  fight  and  "  resist  the  devil;"  and  we  shall  find 
that  scarce  any  temptation  ever  encounters  the  soul  without  its 
second. 

So  then,  you  see  here  the  first  cause  of  this  great  overthrow, 
namely,  the  assault  and  impression  made  from  without  by  the 
tempter ;  which  in  the  next  place  is  rendered  effectual  by  the 
impotence  and  non-resistance  of  the  soul  that  is  so  opposed  ; 
which  peculiarly  answers  his  threefold  opposition  with  three  con- 
trary qualifications. 

1.  As  first,  that  it  is  frequently  unprepared.  The  soul,  God 
knows,  is  but  seldom  upon  the  watch  ;  its  spiritual  armour  is  sel- 
dom buckled  on.  The  business,  the  cares,  and  the  pleasures  of 
the  world,  draw  it  off  from  its  own  defence ;  business  employs, 


FALSE  FOUNDATIONS  REMOVED,  AND  TRUE  ONES  LAID.  469 

care  distracts,  and  pleasure  lulls  it  asleep.  And  is  this  a  posture 
to  receive  an  enemy  in?  an  enemy  cunning,  watchful,  and  mali- 
cious !  an  enemy  who  never  sleeps,  nor  loiters,  nor  overlooks  an 
advantage  ? 

2.  As  it  is  unprepared,  so  it  is  also  weak  and  feeble.  "  The 
spirit,"  says  our  Saviour,  "  is  willing,  but  the  flesh  is  weak."  And 
such  is  the  condition  of  man  in  this  world,  that  much  more  of 
flesh  than  spirit  goes  to  his  constitution.  Nay,  is  not  grace  itself 
described  under  the  weakness  of  smoking  flax,  or  a  bruised  reed  ? 
Of  which  how  quickly  is  one  extinguished,  and  how  easily  is  the 
other  broken ! 

3.  As  it  is  both  unprepared  and  weak,  so  it  is  also  inconstant. 
Peter  will  die  for  his  Master  at  one  time,  and  not  many  hours 
after  deny  and  forswear  him.  Steadfastness  is  the  result  of 
strength,  and  how  then  can  constancy  dwell  with  weakness  ?  The 
greatest  strength  of  the  mind  is  in  its  resolutions,  and  yet  how 
often  do  they  change !  Even  in  the  weightiest  concerns  men  too 
frequently  put  them  on  and  off  with  their  clothes.  They  de- 
ceive when  they  are  most  trusted :  suddenly  starting  and  flying 
in  pieces  like  a  broken  bow;  and  like  a  bow  again,  even  when 
strongest  they  can  hardly  be  kept  always  bent.  We  see  what 
fair  and  promising  beginnings  some  made.  Luke  viii.  13,  "  They 
heard  the  word,  they  received  it  with  joy,  but  having  not  root, 
they  believed  only  for  a  while,  and  so  in  time  of  temptation  fell 
away." 

Constancy  is  the  crowning  virtue,  Matt.  x.  22,  "He  who 
endureth  to  the  end  shall  be  saved."  But  then  constancy  and 
perseverance  are  the  gift  of  God,  and  above  the  production  of 
mere  nature ;  it  being  no  small  paradox  to  imagine,  that  where 
the  stock  itself  is  slight  and  infirm,  any  thing  which  grows  out  of 
it  should  be  strong:. 

u 

And  thus  having  shown  the  threefold  impotence  of  the  soul, 
answerable  to  the  threefold  opposition  made  against  it  by  the 
devil,  what  can  we  conclude,  but  that  where  unpreparedness  is 
encountered  with  unexpected  force,  weakness  with  violence,  in- 
constancy with  importunity*,  there  destruction  must  needs  be,  not 
the  effect  of  chance,  but  nature,  and,  by  the  closest  connexion  of 
causes,  unavoidable. 

It  now  remains  that  in  the  last  place  we  show  wherein  the 
greatness  of  this  fall  consists.  "  The  house  fell,  and  great  was 
the  fall  thereof."  In  short,  it  may  appear  upon  these  two  ac- 
counts. 

First,  That  it  is  scandalous,  and  diffuses  a  contagion  to  others, 
and  a  blot  upon  religion.  A  falling  house  is  a  bad  neighbour. 
It  is  the  property  of  evil  as  well  as  good  to  be  communicative. 
We  still  suppose  the  building  here  mentioned  in  the  text  to  have 
had  all  the  advantages  of  visible  representment,  all  the  pomp  and 
flourish  of  external  ornament,  a  stately  superstructure,  and  a 

2  R 


470 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVIII. 


beautiful  appearance ;  and  therefore  such  a  one  must  needs  perish 
as  remarkably  as  it  stood.  That  which  is  seen  afar  off  while  it 
stands,  is  heard  of  much  further  when  it  falls. 

An  eminent  professor  is  the  concern  of  a  whole  profession ;  as 
to  nonplus  an  Aristotle  would  look,  not  only  like  a  slur  to  a  par- 
ticular philosopher,  but  like  a  baffle  to  philosophy  itself.  The 
devil  will  let  a  man  build  and  practise  high,  that  he  may  at 
length  fetch  him  down  with  the  greater  shame,  and  so  make  even 
a  Christian  an  argument  against  Christianity.  The  subduing  of 
any  soul  is  a  conquest,  but  of  such  a  one  a  triumph.  A  signal 
professor  cannot  perish  without  a  train,  and  in  his  very  destruction 
his  example  is  authentic. 

Secondly,  The  greatness  of  the  fall  here  spoken  of  appears  also 
in  this,  that  such  a  one  is  hardly  and  very  rarely  recovered.  He 
whose  house  falls,  has  not  usually  either  riches  or  heart  to  build 
another.  It  is  the  business  of  a  life  once  to  build.  God  indeed 
can  cement  the  ruins  and  heal  the  breaches  of  an  apostate  soul, 
but  usually  a  shipwrecked  faith  and  a  defloured  conscience  admit 
of  no  repair.  Like  the  present  time,  which  when  once  gone 
never  returns. 

What  may  be  within  the  compass  of  omnipotence,  the  secret 
of  a  decree,  or  the  unlimited  strains  of  extraordinary  grace,  is 
not  here  disputed :  but  as  it  would  be  arrogance  for  us  men  to 
define  the  power  of  grace,  so  is  it  the  height  of  spiritual  prudence 
to  observe  its  methods.  And  upon  such  observation  we  shall 
find,  that  the  recovery  of  such  apostates  is  not  the  custom,  but 
the  prerogative  of  mercy.  A  man  is  ruined  but  once.  A  mis- 
carriage in  the  new  birth  is  dangerous  ;  and  very  fatal  it  gener- 
ally proves  to  pass  the  critical  seasons  of  a  defeated  conversion. 

And  thus  I  have  at  length  despatched  what  I  at  first 
proposed.  Now  the  words  themselves  being,  as  I  said  before, 
Christ's  application  of  his  own  sermon,  cannot  be  improved 
into  a  better,  and  consequently  need  not  into  another,  except 
what  their  own  natural  consequence  does  suggest ;  and  that 
is,  what  our  Saviour  himself  intimates  elsewhere,  namely,  that 
he  who  is  about  to  build,  "  would  first  sit  down  and  consider 
what  it  is  like  to  cost  him."  For  building  is  chargeable,  espe- 
cially if  a  man  lays  out  his  money  like  a  fool.  Would  a  man 
build  for  eternity,  that  is,  in  other  words,  would  he  be  saved  ? 
let  him  consider  with  himself,  wThat  charges  he  is  willing  to  be 
at,  that  he  may  be  so.  Nothing  under  a  universal,  sincere  obe- 
dience to  all  the  precepts  of  the  gospel,  can  entitle  him  to  the 
benefits  of  it ;  and  thus  far  and  deep  he  must  go,  if  he  will  lay 
his  foundation  true.  It  is  a  hard  and  rocky  work,  I  confess,  but 
the  difficulty  of  laying  it  will  be  abundantly  recompensed  by  the 
firmness  of  it  when  it  is  laid. 

But  it  is  a  sad  and  mortifying  consideration  to  think  upon 
what  false  and  sinking  grounds,  or  rather  upon  what  whirlpools 


FALSE  FOUNDATIONS  REMOVED,  AND  TRUE  ONES  LAID.  471 

and  quicksands,  many  venture  to  build.  Some  you  shall  have 
amusing  their  consciences  with  a  set  of  fantastical  new-coined 
phrases,  such  as  laying  hold  on  Christ,  getting  into  Christ,  and 
rolling  themselves  upon  Christ,  and  the  like  ;  by  which  if  they 
mean  any  thing  else  but  obeying  the  precepts  of  Christ,  and  a 
rational  hope  of  salvation  thereupon  (which  it  is  certain  that 
generally  they  do  not  mean),  it  is  all  but  a  jargon  of  empty, 
senseless  metaphors  ;  and  though  many  venture  their  souls  upon 
them,  despising  good  works  and  strict  living  as  mere  morality 
and  perhaps  as  popery,  yet  being  throughly  looked  into  and  ex- 
amined, after  all  their  noise,  they  are  really  nothing  but  words 
and  wind. 

Another  flatters  himself  that  he  has  lived  in  full  assurance  of 
his  salvation  for  ten,  or  twenty,  or  perhaps  thirty  years ;  that  is, 
in  other  words,  the  man  has  been  ignorant  and  confident  very 
long.  Aye,  but  says  another,  I  am  a  great  hearer  and  lover  of 
sermons,  especially  of  lectures ;  and  it  is  this  which  is  the  very 
delight  of  my  righteous  soul,  and  the  main  business  of  my  life ; 
and  though  indeed  according  to  the  good  old  puritan  custom,  I 
use  to  walk  and  talk  out  the  prayers  before  the  church  door,  or 
without  the  choir,  yet  I  am  sure  to  be  always  in  at  sermon. 
Nay,  I  have  so  entirely  devoted  my  whole  time  to  the  hearing  of 
sermons,  that  I  must  confess  I  have  hardly  any  left  to  practise 
them.  And  will  not  all  this  set  me  right  for  heaven  ?  Yes,  no 
doubt,  if  a  man  were  to  be  pulled  up  to  heaven  by  the  ears ;  or 
the  gospel  would  but  reverse  its  rule,  and  declare,  "that  not  the 
doers  of  the  word,  but  the  hearers  only  should  be  justified. " 

But  then  in  comes  a  fourth,  and  tells  us,  that  he  is  a  saint  of 
yet  a  higher  class,  as  having  got  far  above  all  their  mean,  beg- 
garly, steeple-house  dispensations,  by  a  happy  exchange  of  them 
for  the  purer  and  more  refined  ordinances  of  the  conventicle  ; 
where  he  is  sure  to  meet  with  powerful  teaching  indeed,  and  to 
hear  will-worship  and  superstition  run  down,  and  the  priests  of 
Baal  paid  off,  and  the  follies  and  fopperies  of  their  great  idol  the 
Common  Prayer  laid  open  with  a  witness  (not  without  some 
edifying  flings  at  the  king  and  court  too,  sometimes),  by  all  which 
his  faith  is  now  grown  so  strong,  that  he  can  no  more  doubt  of  his 
going  to  heaven,  than  that  there  is  such  a  place  as  heaven  to  go  to. 

So  that  if  the  conscience  of  such  a  one  should  at  any  time 
offer  to  grumble  at  him,  he  would  presently  stop  its  mouth  with 
this,  ?  that  he  is  of  such  a  one's  congregation  ;'  and  then  *  con- 
science say  thy  worst:'  or  if  the  guilt  of  some  old  perjuries  or 
extortions  should  begin  to  look  stern  upon  him,  whv  then  all 
those  old  scores  shall  be  cleared  off  with  a  comfortable  persua- 
sion, '  that  such  as  he  cannot  fall  from  grace,'  though  it  is 
shrewdly  to  be  feared,  that  his  only  way  of  proving  this  must 
be,  1  that  there  can  be  no  losing  or  falling  from  that  which  a  man 
never  had.' 


472 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXVIII. 


But  ah !  thou  poor,  blind,  self-deluding,  and  deluded  soul !  are 
these  the  best  evidences  thou  hast  for  heaven  ?  these  the  grounds 
upon  which  thou  hopest  for  salvation?  assure  thyself  that  God 
will  deal  with  thee  upon  very  different  terms. 

For  he  absolutely  enjoins  thee  to  do  whatsoever  Christ  has 
commanded ;  and  to  avoid  whatsoever  he  has  forbidden.  And 
Christ  has  commanded  thee  to  be  "poor  in  spirit,  and  pure  in 
heart :"  to  subdue  thy  unruly  appetites,  to  curb  thy  lust,  to  re- 
strain thy  anger,  and  to  suppress  thy  revenge.  And  if  any  thing 
proves  a  hinderance  to  thee  in  thy  duty,  though  it  be  as  dear  to 
thee  as  "  thy  right  eye,  to  pluck  it  out ;"  and  as  useful  to  thee  as 
thy  "  right  hand,  to  cut  it  off  and  cast  it  from  thee."  He  will 
have  thee  ready  to  endure  persecutions,  revilings,  and  all  manner 
of  slanders,  not  only  patiently  but  also  cheerfully  for  the  truth's 
sake.  He  calls  upon  thee  to  "  love  thine  enemies,  and  to  do 
good  for  evil:  to  bless  those  that  curse  thee,  and  to  pray  for 
those  that  despitefully  use  thee."  He  commands  thee  in  all 
things  strictly  to  do  as  thou  wouldest  be  done  by ;"  and  not  to 
cheat,  lie,  or  overreach  thy  neighbour ;  and  then  call  it  '  a  fetch- 
ing over  the  wicked,  the  better  to  enable  thee  to  relieve  the 
godly.'  He  will  not  allow  thee  to  resist  evil,  and  much  less  to 
resist  thy  governor.  He  commands  thee  to  be  charitable  without 
vain  glory,  and  devout  without  ostentation.  In  short,  he  re- 
quires thee  to  be  meek  and  lowly,  chaste  and  temperate,  just  and 
merciful ;  and  in  a  word  (so  far  as  the  pure  measures  of  humanity 
will  reach,)  "  perfect  as  thy  heavenly  Father  is  perfect." 

This  is  the  sum  of  those  divine  sayings  of  our  Saviour,  which 
he  himself  refers  to  in  my  text,  and  which  if  a  man  hears  and 
does,  all  the  powers  of  hell  shall  never  shake  him.  And  nothing 
but  a  constant,  impartial,  universal  practice  of  these  will  or  can 
speak  peace  to  thy  conscience  here,  and  stand  between  thee  and 
the  wrath  of  God  hereafter.  As  for  all  other  pretences,  they 
are  nothing  but  death  and  damnation  dressed  up  in  fair  words 
and  false  shows ;  nothing  but  gins,  and  snares,  and  trepans  for 
souls,  contrived  by  the  devil,  and  managed  by  such  as  the  devil 
sets  on  work. 

But  I  have  done,  and  the  result  of  all  that  I  have  said  or  can 
say,  is,  that  every  spiritual  builder  would  be  persuaded  to  trans- 
late his  foundation  from  the  sand  to  the  rock :  and  not  presume 
upon  Christ  as  his  Saviour,  till  by  a  full  obedience  to  his  laws 
he  has  owned  him  for  his  sovereign.  And  this  is  properly  to 
believe  in  him :  this  is  truly  to  build  upon  a  rock ;  even  that 
"  rock  of  ages,"  upon  which  every  one  that  wears  the  name  of 
Christ  must  by  an  inevitable  dilemma  either  build  or  split. 

Now  to  God,  who  is  able  to  build  us  up  in  our  most  holy  faith, 
to  establish  us  here,  and  to  save  us  hereafter,  be  rendered  and 
ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion, 
both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


473 


SERMON  XXIX. 

A  TRUE  STATE  AND  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  PLEA  OF  A  TENDER  CONSCIENCE. 

[Preached  before  the  University  at  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  in  Michaelmas  Term, 

1672.] 

1  Cor.  viii.  12. 

But  when  ye  sin  so  against  the  brethren,  and  wound  their  weak 
conscience,  ye  <$in  against  Christ. 

I  shall,  by  God's  assistance,  from  these  words,  debate  the 
case  of  a  weak,  or  (as  some  improperly  enough  call  it)  a  tender 
conscience :  and  with  what  evidence  I  can,  show  both  what  it  is, 
and  what  privileges  it  may  justly  claim  from  this  and  such  other 
places  of  scripture.  One  great  one  we  have  here  set  down,  and 
that  indeed  so  great,  that  it  looks  more  like  a  prerogative  than  a 
privilege  ;  namely,  that  to  wound  or  sin  against  it,  is  no  less  a 
crime  than  to  sin  against  Christ  himself. 

Our  apostle  in  two  places  of  his  epistles  treats  professedly  of 
this  argument ;  to  wit,  in  Romans  xiv.  and  in  1  Cor.  viii.  For 
the  better  understanding  of  his  design  and  meaning  in  both 
which  places,  it  will  be  requisite  to  give  some  brief  account  of 
the  subject-matter  and  occasion  of  them.  In  the  14th  chapter 
of  the  Romans  he  speaks  of  such  as  had  been  converted  from 
Judaism  to  Christianity;  some  of  which  being  but  new  con- 
verts, where  not  yet  so  perfectly  and  entirely  Christians,  but  that 
they  still  observed  the  ordinances  of  the  Mosaical  law,  as  sup- 
posing it  still  in  force.  Others,  on  the  contrary,  being  more 
confirmed  and  grown  up  in  the  knowledge  of  their  Christian 
liberty,  and  thereby  being  fully  satisfied  that  the  ceremonial 
part  of  the  Mosaic  law  was  abolished  and  taken  away,  observed 
not  that  difference  of  days  and  meats  which  was  prescribed  in 
that  law,  but  looked  upon  one  day  as  another,  and  indifferently 
ate  any  kind  of  meats,  being  persuaded  in  their  conscience,  that 
Christ  had  taken  away  all  such  distinction,  and  made  the  use  of 
all  lawful.  Nevertheless  the  former  sort  of  converts,  not  under- 
standing that  it  was  the  design  of  Christianity  to  abrogate  any 
thing  once  established  by  Moses,  had  their  consciences  still  in 
bondage  to  a  religious  observation  of  whatsoever  had  been  en- 
joined in  his  law.  And  thereupon,  though  they  owned  Christ, 
yet  if  any  meat  prohibited  by  Moses  was  set  before  them,  they 

Vol.  I.— 60  2  r  2 


474 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIX. 


held  themselves  bound  rather  to  fast,  or  to  eat  only  herbs,  than 
by  eating  such  meat  to  break  the  law  (as  they  thought),  and 
thereby  to  defile  themselves.    This  was  their  case. 

But  in  this  8th  chapter  of  1  Cor.  St.  Paul  speaks  of  persons 
newly  converted  from  idolatry,  and  that  touching  the  lawfulness 
or  unlawfulness  of  eating  meats  offered  to  idols.  Concerning 
which  offerings  we  must  know,  that  besides  what  was  eaten  of 
them  in  the  idol's  temple  (which  eating  was  an  act  of  religious 
worship  and  communion  with  the  idol,  as  our  eating  the  bread 
in  the  sacrament  is  a  communion  with  Christ) ;  besides  this,  I 
say,  there  was  a  certain  portion  of  those  sacrifices  which  fell  to 
the  priests,  and  which  they,  having  no  use  for,  sold  to  those  who 
afterwards  exposed  it  to  sale  promiscuously  amongst  other  meat 
upon  the  shambles ;  from  whence  it  was  accordingly  bought  up 
and  spent  in  private  families,  without  any  distinction  whether  it 
had  or  had  not  been  offered  to  idols.  Now,  as  for  the  former 
way  of  eating  meats  thus  offered,  namely,  in  the  idol's  temple, 
this  the  apostle  utterly  disallows  as  absolutely  unlawful ;  but 
the  latter  only  under  some  circumstances.  For  he  allows  that  it 
might  be  lawfully  bought  amongst  other  meat  in  the  market, 
and  being  so  bought,  might  be  eaten  in  any  private  house  with- 
out the  least  sin :  only  with  this  caution,  that  whereas  there 
were  some,  whc  well  understood  that  meat  could  have  no  de- 
filing quality  imprinted  upon  it  by  its  consecration  to  an  idol ; 
and  others,  on  the  contrary,  having  not  so  much  knowledge,  sup- 
posed that  the  consecration  of  it  to  the  idol,  left  upon  it  such  a 
polluting  quality  and  near  relation  to  the  idol,  as  defiled  the 
eater :  the  former  sort  might  freely  and  innocently  eat  such 
meats  in  private  families,  provided  it  was  not  before  those  of  the 
latter  sort ;  who,  through  weakness,  having  an  opinion  of  the 
unlawfulness  of  such  meats,  might  nevertheless  be  indueed  to 
use  the  same  liberty,  though  their  consciences,  in  the  mean  time, 
having  quite  another  judgment  in  this  matter,  esteemed  the  eat- 
ing them  little  better  than  idolatry.  Now  the  argument  by 
which  the  apostle  abridges  the  liberty  of  the  former  sort  of  con- 
verts, in  condescension  to  those  of  the  latter  sort,  proceeds  upon 
the  strength  of  this  assertion ;  that  the  lawfulness  of  men's 
actions  depends  not  solely  either  upon  the  lawfulness  of  their 
subject-matter,  nor  yet  upon  the  conscience  of  the  doers  of  them 
considered  in  itself,  but  as  considered  with  reference  to  the  con- 
sciences of  others,  to  whom,  by  the  law  of  charity,  they  stand 
bound  so  to  behave  themselves,  as  by  none  of  their  actions  to 
give  them  occasion  of  sin.  And  this  was  the  case  of  the  persons 
here  treated  of  by  the  apostle  in  this  chapter.  Which  historical 
account  of  the  subject-matter  of  the  words  being  thus  premised, 
I  shall  cast  the  prosecution  of  them  under  these  three  heads. 

I.  I  shall  show  you  what  a  weak  conscience  is. 

II.  What  it  is  to  wound  or  sin  against  it. 


% 


A  TRUE  STATE  OF  THE  PLEA  OF  A  TENDER  CONSCIENCE.  475 

III.  I  shall  lay  down  some  conclusions  or  assertions,  naturally 
resulting  from  the  foregoing  particulars. 

I.  And  for  the  first  of  these,  what  a  weak  conscience  is.  I  said 
at  first  that  such  a  conscience  was  improperly  called  tender; 
which  in  the  sense  it  commonly  bears,  is  an  expression  of  our 
own  framing,  and  no  where  to  be  met  with  in  the  scriptures; 
tenderness,  applied  to  the  conscience,  properly  imports  quickness 
and  exactness  of  sense,  which  is  the  perfection  of  this  faculty, 
whose  duty  it  is  to  be  a  spiritual  watch  to  give  us  warning  of 
whatsoever  concerns  us.  It  is  indeed  the  eye  of  the  soul ;  and 
though  the  eye  is  naturally  the  most  tender  and  delicate  part  of 
the  body,  yet  it  is  not  therefore  called  weak,  so  long  as  its  sight 
is  quick  and  strong.  Conscience,  the  more  sensible  it  is  to  accuse 
or  excuse  (which  is  its  office),  and  to  spy  out  every  little  thing 
which  may  annoy  or  defile  the  soul,  so  much  the  more  tender  it 
is  to  be  accounted,  but  not  therefore  so  much  the  more  weak : 
which  sufficiently  shows  weakness  and  tenderness  of  conscience 
to  be  in  strictness  of  speech  two  different  things.  And  the  same 
appears  yet  further  from  those  contraries  to  which  they  stand 
respectively  opposed.  A  tender  conscience  being  opposed  to  a 
hard  or  seared  conscience :  such  a  one  as  either  wholly  or  in  a 
great  measure  has  lost  the  distinguishing  sense  of  good  and  evil, 
honest  and  dishonest.  But  a  weak  conscience  is  opposed  to  a 
strong :  which  very  strength,  we  show,  consisted  in  the  tender- 
ness or  quickness  of  its  discerning  or  perceptive  power;  where- 
upon we  read  of  "strong  men  and  babes"  in  Christ;  which  de- 
nominations take  their  rise  from  the  strength  or  weakness  of  the 
conscience :  for  such  as  the  conscience  is,  such  must  be  the 
Christian. 

And  here  let  none  think  my  insisting  upon  the  distinction  of 
these  terms  either  nice  or  needless :  for  it  is  no  small  artifice  of 
fraud  to  prepossess  the  minds  of  men,  by  representing  a  bad  thing 
under  a  good  name,  and  calling  weakness  of  conscience  which  is 
a  defect,  by  the  name  of  tenderness  which  is  a  perfection.  Words 
govern  the  generality  of  the  world,  who  seldom  go  so  deep  as  to 
look  into  things :  and  imposters  well  know  how  likely  their  cause 
is  to  succeed,  if  their  terms  can  but  once  be  admitted. 

As  for  the  place  now  before  us,  it  is  evident  that  the  weak- 
ness of  conscience  here  spoken  of  is  opposed  to  faith :  so  that  in 
Rom.  xiv.  such  a  one  is  said  to  be  "  weak  in  the  faith,"  and  ver. 
2,  "  one  believeth  that  he  may  eat  all  things  ;  and  another  who  is 
weak  eateth  herbs."  Where  observe  he  who  believeth  is  opposed 
to  him  who  is  weak.  Now  by  faith  here  is  not  meant  that  act 
or  quality  by  which  a  man  is  justified,  but  signifies  the  same 
with  knowledge.  As  1  Cor.  viii.  10,  "  If  any  man  see  thee  who 
hast  knowledge  sit  at  meat  in  the  idol's  temple,  shall  not  the  con- 
science of  him  who  is  weak  be  emboldened  to  do  so  too  ?"  And 


476 


DR.   SOUTH' S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIX. 


in  ver.  7,  "  Howbeit  there  is  not  in  every  man  this  knowledge ,  for 
some  with  conscience  of  the  idol  eat  it  as  a  thing  offered  to  an  idol, 
and  their  conscience  being  weak  is  defiled."  So  that,  as  in  that 
chapter  to  the  Romans,  weakness  of  conscience  is  opposed  to 
faith :  here  in  this  chapter  to  the  Corinthians,  the  same  weakness 
is  opposed  to  knowledge.  Which  from  the  identity  of  the  case 
treated  of  in  both  places,  together  with  other  circumstances, 
evidently  demonstrate  faith  and  knowledge  to  be  here  taken  for 
the  same  thing.  In  short  therefore,  the  faith  here  spoken  of  is  a 
clear  knowledge  of  what  is  unlawful,  and  what  only  indifferent, 
together  with  a  firm  persuasion  of  the  lawful  use  of  such  in- 
different things,  all  circumstances  being  duly  observed  in  the 
using  of  them.  And  therefore  on  the  other  side,  the  weak  con- 
science is  such  a  one  as  judges  otherwise  of  the  nature  of  things 
than  indeed  it  is,  supposing  that  to  be  unlawful  in  itself  which 
really  is  not  so,  and  thereupon  abstaining  from  the  use  of  it,  as 
of  a  thing  unlawful. 

From  whence  it  follows,  that  weakness  of  conscience  implies 
in  it  these  three  things : 

First,  An  ignorance  of  the  lawfulness  of  some  certain  thing 
or  action. 

Secondly,  A  suspicion  ensuing  thereupon  of  its  unlawfulness. 

Thirdly,  A  religious  fear  to  use  or  practise  it,  grounded  upon 
that  ignorance  or  suspicion. 

And  first,  for  the  first  of  these  ingredients,  ignorance;  which 
is  indeed  the  chief  and  principal  of  all  the  three,  as  being  the 
original  of  the  other  two.  Concerning  this,  we  must  (as  the 
ground  work  of  all)  observe,  that  it  ought  by  all  means  to  be 
such  an  ignorance  as  may  in  propriety  of  speech  and  sense  bear  the 
denomination  of  weakness:  which  it  is  certain  that  every  sort  of 
ignorance  neither  does  nor  can.  For  since  weakness  is  properly 
the  privation  or  absence  of  power,  that  ignorance  only  can  receive 
this  name,  which  is  not  founded  upon  any  vicious  action  or 
omission  of  the  will.  I  say  action  or  omission :  for  a  man 
may  either  positively  design  and  will  the  ignorance  of  a  thing, 
by  studiously  avoiding  all  means  to  inform  himself  of  it ;  much 
like  the  shutting  of  one's  eyes  against  the  light,  or  refusing  to 
come  to  church.  Or  it  may  be  founded  upon  some  omission ;  as 
when  the  will,  though  it  does  not  designedly  avoid  and  put  from 
it  the  means  of  knowledge,  yet  neglects  to  look  after  them.  Now 
the  ignorance  which  is  occasioned  either  of  these  ways  is  willing, 
and  consequently  sinful :  though  usually  for  distinction  sake  the 
former  is  with  more  emphasis  termed  not  only  willing  but  wilful ; 
as  being  the  direct  object  of  an  act  of  volition,  and  upon  that 
account  stamped  with  a  higher  aggravation. 

That  ignorance  therefore  that  renders  and  denominates  the 
conscience  weak,  must  be  such  a  one  as  is  not  willing ;  which  is 
evident  upon  a  double  account. 


A  TRUE  STATE  OF  THE  PLEA  OF  A  TENDER  CONSCIENCE.  477 

1.  Because  it  must  be  such  a  one  as  renders  it  in  some  degree 
excusable ;  bat  so  far  as  any  defect  is  resolved  into  the  will,  it  is 
in  that  degree  inexcusable. 

2.  Because  it  must  be  such  an  ignorance  as  renders  the  person 
having  it  the  object  of  pity  and  compassion.  But  no  man  pities 
another  for  any  evil  lying  upon  him,  which  he  would  not  help, 
but  which  he  could  not.  One  is  his  burden,  the  other  his  choice  ; 
virtually  at  least,  since  he  might  have  chosen  its  prevention.  So 
that  it  must  be  such  an  ignorance  as  is  not  (all  circumstances 
considered)  under  the  present  power  of  a  man's  will  to  remedy. 
And  consequently  it  must  be  resolved  into  one  of  these  two 
causes. 

1.  The  natural  weakness  of  the  understanding  faculty. 

2.  The  want  of  opportunities  or  means  of  knowledge. 

Either  of  which  makes  ignorance  necessary ;  as  it  is  impossible 
for  him  to  see  who  wants  eyes,  and  equally  impossible  for  him 
who  wants  light;  the  former  being  the  organ,  the  other  the  means 
of  seeing.  But  as  touching  the  natural  weakness  or  disability  of 
the  understanding  faculty,  we  must  observe,  that  this  may  be 
either  total,  as  in  case  of  idiotism,  frenzy,  or  the  like  ;  which 
wholly  deprives  a  man  of  the  use  of  his  reason :  but  persons  in 
this  condition  fall  not  under  the  present  consideration.  Or, 
secondly,  this  disability  of  the  understanding  may  be  only  in 
part,  and  as  to  a  certain  degree  of  its  exercise.  From  whence  it 
is,  that  one  man  apprehends  the  same  thing  under  the  same 
advantages  of  proposal  much  more  slowly  and  difficultly  than 
another.  Which  defect  being  in  no  man's  power  to  prevent,  but 
coming  with  him  into  the  world ;  all  that  ignorance,  which  is 
inevitably  caused  by  it,  neither  can  nor  ever  shall  be  charged 
upon  the  will.  But  then  withal,  as  this  defect  does  not  wholly 
deprive  a  man  of  the  power  of  knowing,  but  only  of  the  readi- 
ness, easiness,  and  quickness  of  it  (upon  which  account  knowledge 
becomes  more  difficult  to  him  in  the  acquisition) ;  so  this  weak- 
ness, dulness,  or  slowness  of  a  man's  intellectual  powers,  can 
never  totally,  excuse  him  for  being  ignorant  of  what  it  was  his 
duty  to  know ;  since  it  was  in  the  power  of  his  will  by  labour 
and  industry  to  have  supplied,  and,  as  it  were,  to  have  pieced  up, 
these  failures  in  his  apprehension  ;  and  so  at  length,  to  have  ac- 
quired the  knowledge  of  that  by  study  and  pains,  which  he  could 
not  by  the  slowness  of  his  understanding  take  in  at  first. 

But  then,  this  must  be  also  confessed,  that  by  reason  of  this 
diversity  in  the  quickness  or  slowness  of  men's  understandings, 
one  man  may  be  sooner  inexcusable  for  his  ignorance  of  the 
same  thing  than  another.'  For  God  will  allow  a  man  of  slower 
parts  to  be  ignorant  of  a  thing  longer  than  a  person  endued  with 
more  quick  and  pregnant  sense.  He  expects  from  men  only 
according  to  the  proportions  of  his  giving  to  them ;  still  making 
an  equality  and  commcnsuration  between  a  man's  obligations  and 


478 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIX. 


his  powers.  And  thus  much  for  the  first  and  grand  ingredient 
of  weakness  of  conscience,  which  is  ignorance. 

Secondly,  The  second  is  a  suspicion  of  the  unlawfulness  of  any- 
thing or  action:  and  this  is  manifestly  something  more  than  a 
bare  ignorance  of  its  lawfulness.  Though  indeed  such  an  igno- 
rance is  of  itself  enough  to  make  the  forbearance  of  any  thing 
or  action  necessary :  forasmuch  as  nothing  ought  to  be  done  but 
in  faith ;  that  is,  in  a  full  persuasion  of  the  lawfulness  of  what 
we  do :  which  he  can  be  no  more  said  to  do,  who  is  ignorant  of 
the  lawfulness  of  what  he  goes  about,  than  he  who  suspects  it  to 
be  unlawful.  Howbeit  this  suspicion  adds  to  the  guilt  of  the 
action,  in  case  it  be  done  during  its  continuance :  because  all  sus- 
picion is  grounded  upon  some  arguments,  which  leave  not  the 
opinion  of  the  lawfulness  or  unlawfulness  of  a  thing  equal,  as  in 
case  of  mere  ignorance,  but  rather  incline  us  to  a  belief  that  it  is 
unlawful.  For  it  is  one  thing  not  to  know  whether  a  thing  be 
lawful,  another  to  doubt  shrewdly  or  suspect  that  it  is  not  so. 
Now  this  indeed  is  the  usual  concomitant  of  weakness  of  con- 
science, as  being  the  natural  product  of  ignorance,  which  seldom 
stops  in  itself :  men  in  the  dark  being  generally  fearful  and  apt 
to  suspect  the  worst.  But  yet  this  suspicion  is  not  essentially 
requisite  to  make  a  conscience  weak ;  though  where  it  is  so,  it 
makes  that  weakness  greater  and  more  troublesome.  For  igno- 
rance is  properly  that  in  which  this  weakness  consists :  ignorance 
makes  the  sore,  suspicion  inflames  it. 

Thirdly,  The  third  and  last  thing  that  goes  to  the  making  up 
of  this  weakness  of  conscience,  is  a  religious  abstinence  from  the 
use  of  that  thing  of  the  lawfulness  whereof  it  is  thus  ignorant 
or  suspicious.  It  brings  a  man  to  that  condition  in  Col.  ii.  21, 
of  "touch  not,  taste  not,  handle  not."  It  lays  a  tie  and  a  re- 
straint upon  his  practice,  and  enslaves  him  to  the  prejudice  of  a 
mistaking  conscience,  under  no  less  a  penalty  than  that  of  the 
divine  wrath  and  eternal  damnation ;  bonds  not  to  be  shaken  off 
and  fences  not  to  be  broken  through  by  any  one  who  values  the 
eternal  welfare  of  his  soul. 

Now  from  these  three  things  put  together,  I  conceive,  we  may 
collect  this  full  description  of  a  weak  conscience ;  namely,  that  it 
is  such  a  one  as  obliges  a  man  to  forbear  any  thing  or  action, 
from  a  suspicion  that  it  is  unlawful,  or  at  least  an  ignorance  that 
it  is  lawful ;  which  suspicion  or  ignorance  was  not  caused  or 
occasioned  by  his  own  will,  but  either  by  the  natural  weakness 
of  his  understanding,  or  the  want  of  such  means  of  knowledge 
as  were  absolutely  necessary  to  inform  him. 

This  description  ought  well  to  be  observed  and  remembered  in 
the  several  parts  of  it ;  as  being  that  which  must  give  light  into 
all  the  following  particulars. 

And  thus  much  for  the  first  thing  proposed,  which  was  to 
show  what  this  weak  conscience  is.    I  proceed  now  to  the 


A  TRUE  STATE  OF  THE  PLEA  OF  A  TENDER  CONSCIENCE.  479 

II.  Which  is  to  show,  what  it  is  to  wound  or  sin  against  it. 
It  implies,  I  conceive,  these  two  things. 

I.  To  grieve,  afflict,  or  discompose  it;  or,  in  a  word,  to  rob  it 
of  its  peace.  For  there  is  that  concernment  for  God's  honour 
dwelling  in  every  truly  pious  heart,  which  makes  it  troubled  at 
the  sight  of  any  action  by  which  it  supposes  God  to  be  dis- 
honoured. "  Rivers  of  tears,"  says  David,  "  run  down  my  eyes, 
because  men  keep  not  thy  statutes ;  and  am  I  not  grieved  with 
those  who  rise  up  against  thee?"  Every  sin  directly  strikes  at 
God,  but  collaterally  the  scandal  of  it  reaches  all  about  us. 
And  as  piety  commands  us  not  to  offend  God,  so  charity  enjoins 
us  not  to  grieve  our  neighbour. 

•2.  The  other  thing  implied  in  the  wounding  of  a  weak  con- 
science, is,  to  encourage  or  embolden  it  to  act  something  against 
its  present  judgment  or  persuasion :  which  is,  in  other  terms,  to 
offend,  or  cast  a  stumbling-block  before  it :  that  is,  to  do  some- 
thing which  may  administer  to  it  an  occasion  of  falling  or  bring- 
ing itself  under  the  guilt  of  sin.  So  that  as  the  former  was  a 
breach  upon  the  peace,  this  is  properly  a  wound  upon  the  purity 
of  the  conscience. 

Now  the  conscience  may  be  induced  to  act  counter  to  its  present 
persuasion  two  ways. 

1st,  By  example.    2nd,  By  command. 

( 1 . )  And  first  for  example ;  which  is  the  case  here  expressly 
mentioned,  and  principally  intended.  According  to  that  of  the 
apostle  in  the  10th  verse  of  this  8th  of  1  Cor.  where  he  says 
"that  the  conscience  of  him  who  is  weak  is  emboldened  to  eat 
things  offered  to  idols,  by  seeing  him  who  has  knowledge  sit  at 
meat  in  the  idol's  temple:"  so  that  it  is  the  seeing  of  another  do 
so,  which  makes  the  weak  person  conclude  that  he  may  do  so  too. 
Now  the  reason  of  that  persuasive  force  which  is  in  example,  is 
from  a  kind  of  implicit  faith  in  the  goodness  and  lawfulness  of 
another's  actings,  grounded  upon  a  supposal  of  his  piety  and 
judgment,  which  in  the  weak  conscience  of  one  who  beholds  him, 
naturally  frames  such  a  kind  of  ratiocination  as  this,  "  I,  for 
my  part,  by  the  best  of  my  understanding,  can  be  no  way  satis- 
fied of  the  lawfulness  of  my  doing  such  an  action,  nevertheless 
such  a  one,  whom  I  esteem  a  person  truly  pious  and  more  judi- 
cious than  myself,  makes  no  scruple  of  doing  it  at  all,  which 
surely  he  would,  if  it  were  indeed  unlawful:  and  therefore  if  it 
be  lawful  for  him  to  do  thus  and  thus,  why  may  it  not  be  so  like- 
wise for  me,  albeit  my  own  reason,  I  confess,  would  persuade  me 
otherwise  ?" 

So  that  here  is  the  force  of  the  example  to  persuade,  and 
thereby,  in  this  case  to  wound :  in  that  it  induces  a  man  to  act 
by  an  implicit  faith  in  the  private  judgment  of  another,  against 
the  express  dictates  and  persuasions  of  his  own :  a  thing  directly 
against  the  law  of  God  and  nature,  which  has  appointed  every 


480 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIX. 


man's  reason  or  conscience  to  be  the  immediate  guide  or  governor 
of  his  actions. 

(2.)  The  second  way  by  which  the  conscience  may  be  induced 
to  act  contrary  to  its  present  persuasion,  is  by  command ;  as 
when  a  person  in  power  enjoins  the  doing  something,  of  the  law- 
fulness of  which  a  man  is  not  persuaded :  but  concerning  this, 
these  two  things  are  to  be  observed. 

First,  That  it  is  not  so  clear  that  a  mere  command  can  wound 
the  conscience  this  way;  that  is,  emboldening  it  to  act  against 
its  present  persuasions ;  for  so  to  embolden  it,  is  to  make  it 
willing  to  act  in  this  manner;  but  a  command  as  such,  makes 
not  a  man  willing  to  do  the  thing  commanded,  but  lays  only  an 
obligation  upon  the  action  that  is  to  be  done.  Nevertheless, 
since  a  command  seldom  comes  proposed  naked  in  itself,  but  with 
the  conjunction  of  rewards  upon  performance  of  the  thing  com- 
manded, or  of  penalties  upon  the  omission;  one  whereof  works 
upon  a  man's  hopes,  the  other  upon  his  fears :  by  both  of  which 
ways  the  will  of  man  is  apt  to  be  prevailed  upon:  therefore  in 
this  sense  a  command  enjoining  a  man  to  do  something  against 
his  judgment,  may  be  said  to  wound  his  conscience;  not  as  a 
bare  command  (for  so  it  has  nothing  to  allure  or  gain  the  will, 
and  it  is  certain  that  it  cannot  force  it),  but  as  a  command  attend- 
ed with  those  things  which  are  apt  to  entice  and  gain  upon  it. 
Add  to  this  also,  that  a  command  coming  from  a  person  noted  for 
his  piety  and  knowledge  has  the  force  of  an  example :  forasmuch 
as  the  reputation  of  the  person  derives  the  same  credit  upon  his 
law. 

Secondly,  The  other  thing  here  to  be  observed,  is  that  a  com- 
mand may  be  considered  two  ways : 

First,  As  descending  from  one  private  person  upon  another,  as 
from  a  father  upon  his  son,  from  a  master  upon  his  servant,  from 
a  guardian  upon  his  pupil,  or  the  like.  And  I  question  not  but 
the  principal  design  of  the  apostle  in  this  chapter  extends  not 
beyond  private  persons;  but  directly  proposes  rules  only  for  the 
charitable  and  inoffensive  deportment  of  one  private  person 
towards  another.  Nevertheless,  since  by  manifest  analogy  of 
reason,  the  case  of  magistrates  or  public  persons  may  here  come 
into  consideration ;  therefore  in  the 

Second  place,  a  command  may  be  considered  as  descending 
from  a  magistrate  or  public  person  upon  persons  under  his  juris- 
diction. And  so  I  affirm  that  the  supreme  magistrate  in  the 
making  of  laws,  or  giving  out  commands,  stands  not  under  any 
obligation  from  his  office  to  frame  those  laws  to  the  good  or  ad- 
vantage of  any  particular  persons,  but  only  of  the  community  or 
majority  of  the  people,  which  are  properly  the  trust  committed 
to  him.  So  that  if  his  reason  or  conscience,  upon  the  best  in- 
formation he  can  get,  tells  him  that  the  making  of  such  or  such  a 
law  tends  to  the  good  of  these,  and  that  so  apparently  that  with- 


A  TRUE  STATE  OF  THE  PLEA  OF  A  TENDER  CONSCIENCE.  481 

out  it  they  would  be  unavoidably  hurt  in  matters  of  the  greatest 
moment :  if  this  law  now  becomes  an  occasion  of  sin  to  some 
particular  persons,  its  being  so  is  wholly  accidental  and  extrinsic 
to  the  design  of  the  law,  and  consequently  concerns  not  the  civil 
magistrate,  nor  makes  him  chargeable  with  those  sins  in  the  least. 
For  surely  where  the  public  good  of  all  or  most  of  the  people 
comes  into  competition  with  the  private  good  of  some  particulars, 
so  that  both  cannot  possibly  be  served  by  the  same  means,  there 
charity,  as  well  as  bare  reason,  will  teach  that  the  private  must 
stoop  to  the  public,  rather  than  the  public  be  made  a  sacrifice  to 
the  private.  In  God's  government  of  the  world  it  is  the  public 
concern  of  mankind,  that  there  should  be  summer  and  winter  in 
their  respective  seasons,  and  yet  there  are  millions  of  sick  and 
weak  persons  to  whose  distempers  the  approach  of  either  of 
those  seasons  will  prove  certainly  mortal.  Is  it  now,  think  we, 
rational  that  God  should  suspend  a  summer  or  a  winter  only  to 
comply  with  the  distemper  of  those  crazy,  bodily-weak  brethren, 
and  thereby  to  incommode  all  the  world  besides  ? 

The  case  is  much  alike  here  ;  however  this  indeed  must  be 
confessed,  that  if  the  magistrate  or  supreme  power  should  make 
a  law  which  he  knew  would  be  a  direct  occasion  of  sin  to  the 
generality-  or  majority  of  his  people,  the  making  of  such  a  law 
would  be  in  him  a  sin  and  a  breach  of  his  trust.  But  still  I 
affirm  that  his  office  obliges  him  only  to  provide  for  the  good  of 
the  main  body  of  his  people ;  and  if  it  so  falls  out,  that  particu- 
lars come  to  have  an  interest  distinct  from,  or  opposite  to  that, 
he  is  not,  during  such  its  opposition,  at  all  bound  to  regard  or 
provide  for  it :  nor  to  answer  for  the  inconveniences  which  may 
attend  such  persons,  either  in  their  civil  or  spiritual  concerns. 

And  thus  much  concerning  the  second  thing  proposed,  which 
was  to  show  what  it  is  to  wound  or  sin  against  a  weak  conscience, 
namely,  that  it  is  either  to  grieve  it,  or  to  embolden  it  to  sin. 
And  if  it  be  now  objected  against  this,  that  the  text  calls  a 
sinning  against  a  weak  conscience,  a  sinning  against  Christ,  to 
whom  we  can  noways  properly  be  said  to  administer  any  occasion 
or  inducement  to  sin  ;  I  answer  that  this  expression  of  "  sinning 
against"  being  applied  to  Christ,  imports  only  a  grieving  or  dis- 
obeying him :  though,  as  it  is  applied  to  the  weak  conscience,  it 
signifies  the  other  thing  too  ;  it  being  not  unusual  in  scripture 
for  the  same  word  to  be  repeated  in  the  very  same  sentence 
under  a  diverse  signification.  Having  thus  finished  the  first  two 
things,  I  come  now  to  the 

III.  And  last,  which  is  to  set  down  those  conclusions,  which, 
by  way  of  consequence  and  deduction,  naturally  result  from  the 
foregoing  particulars.    Which  conclusions  are  these, 

1.  That  no  man  having  been  brought  up,  or  for  any  length  of 
time  continued  in  the  communion  of  a  church,  teaching  and  pro- 

Vol.  I.— 61  2  S 


482 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIX. 


fessing  the  true  religion,  if  he  have  but  also  the  common  use  of 
his  reason,  can  justly  plead  weakness  of  conscience  in  the  sense 
in  which  it  was  here  used  by  the  apostle. 

2,  That  as  such  weakness  of  conscience  can  upon  no  sufficient 
ground  be  actually  pleaded,  so  upon  much  less  can  it  be  con- 
tinued in. 

3.  That  supposing  it  might  be  both  pleaded  and  continued  in, 
yet  the  plea  of  it  ought  by  no  means  to  be  admitted  by  the  civil 
magistrate  in  prejudice  of  any  laws,  either  actually  made  or  to  be 
made  by  him,  for  the  general  good  of  his  people.  Of  each  of 
which  in  their  order. 

1.  And  first,  for  the  first  of  these,  that  no  man,  &c.  This  con- 
clusion is  of  so  much  force  and  use  rightly  applied,  that  it  is  a 
wonder  it  has  not  been  more  insisted  upon  against  those  who  dis- 
turb the  church  with  this  plea,  forasmuch  as  it  would  wholly 
cashier  and  pluck  it  up  by  the  very  roots.  And  men  mistake  the 
method  of  disputing  with  these  pretenders  to  weak  consciences 
now-a-days ;  not  considering  that  the  very  supposition  that  they 
either  have  or  can  have  a  weak  conscience  ought  by  no  means  to 
be  granted  them  ;  nor  are  we  to  debate  with  them,  how  far  and 
to  what  degree  this  their  weakness  ought  to  be  yielded  to,  but 
absolutely  to  deny,  that  amongst  us  and  under  our  circumstances 
there  is  any  such  thing. 

St.  Paul  indeed  speaks  of  such  a  conscience  in  those  first  times 
of  preaching  the  gospel,  and  accordingly  urges  a  compliance  with 
it ;  but  where  the  cases  are  wholly  different,  there  the  privileges 
applicable  to  both  cannot  be  the  same.  In  both  these  places  in 
which  this  apostle  treats  of  this  matter,  I  show  that  the  persons 
to  whom  he  addresses  himself  were  but  new  converts.  Some  of 
which  were  just  converted  and  come  off  from  Judaism,  whose 
reverence  to  the  law  of  Moses  had  been  sucked  in  by  them  with 
their  very  milk,  and  been  still  kept  up  in  the  minds  of  all  that 
people,  to  that  strange  height  almost  of  adoration,  that  it  is  no 
wonder  if  their  opinion  of  the  continuance  of  that  law  even  after 
Christ's  death,  and  their  ignorance  of  its  abrogation,  were  for  a 
time  invincible.  And  for  the  other  sort  of  new  converts,  they 
were  such  as  had  been  converted  from  heathenism  and  idolatry, 
and  consequently  looked  upon  every  thing  in  use  amongst  those 
heathens  with  a  suspicion  and  a  jealousy  so  strong,  that  consider- 
ing the  weakness  of  human  nature,  it  was  impossible  presently  to 
remove  it;  and  therefore  they  were  in  charity  for  some  time  to 
be  complied  with.  For  as  the  prejudices  and  prepossessions  of 
education  are  exceeding  hardly  removed  and  broken,  so  being 
once  broken,  the  aversions  of  the  mind  from  them,  running  into 
the  other  extreme,  are  altogether  as  impetuous,  and  as  hardly 
governable  by  impartial  reason;  whereupon  shadows  are  often- 
times mistaken  for  substances,  whilst  men  through  immoderate 
fearfulness  first  create  to  themselves  appearances  of  evil,  and  then 
fly  from  them. 


A  TRUE  STATE  OF  THE  PLEA  OF  A  TENDER  CONSCIENCE.  483 

But  what  is  all  this  to  the  case  of  those  now-a-days  amongst 
us  ?  who  from  their  cradle  have  or  might  have  had  the  principles 
of  true  religion  instilled  into  them ;  who  have  still  grown  up  in  a 
church  which  protests  against  idolatry  and  superstition ;  and  en- 
joins nothing  that  has  any  just  appearance  of  such  things  upon  it, 
but  offers  to  vindicate  every  thing  practised  and  enjoined  by  it 
from  any  such  imputation :  these  men  surely  can  have  no  reason 
to  entertain  those  jealousies  and  prejudices  which  possessed  men 
who  had  been  bred  up  all  their  days  in  Judaism  or  idolatry,  and 
were  but  newly  converted  from  it.  Especially  if  we  add  this 
also,  that  the  goodness  of  God  makes  nothing  our  duty  either  to 
believe  or  practise,  but  what  lies  plain  and  obvious  to  any  com- 
mon apprehension,  which  will  not  be  wanting  to  itself.  Which 
tilings  since  the  church  inculcates  to  all  within  it,  teaching  them 
to  know  by  all  the  ordinary  means  of  knowledge  whatsoever  it  is 
their  duty  to  know :  it  is  evident  that  no  man  amongst  us  can 
justifiably  plead  weakness  of  conscience  in  that  sense,  in  which 
their  consciences  were  weak,  whom  St.  Paul  deals  with  either  in 
that  epistle  of  his  to  the  Romans,  or  in  this  to  the  Corinthians. 
For  can  any  man  living  in  the  church  allege  any  tolerable  cause 
why  he  should  be  ignorant  of  his  catechism,  a  thing  so  short  and 
plain,  and  yet  so  full  as  to  all  things  necessary  to  be  believed  or 
practised  by  a  Christian,  that  common  sense  and  common 
industry  may  make  any  one  a  master  of  it  ? 

The  sum  of  all  therefore  is  this,  that  he  only  can  plead  weak- 
ness of  conscience  upon  scripture  grounds,  who  is  excusably 
ignorant  of  some  point  of  duly-  or  privilege.  He  only  is  excusa- 
bly ignorant,  whose  ignorance  is  not  the  effect  of  his  will.  That 
ignorance  only  is  not  so,  which  is  caused  either  by  want  of 
ability,  of  understanding,  or  of  opportunities  and  means  of  know- 
ledge. But  he  who  has  the  common  use  of  reason  has  sufficient 
ability,  and  he  who  lives  in  a  church  professing  the  -true  religion, 
has  sufficient  opportunity  and  means  of  knowing  whatsoever 
concerns  him  either  to  know  or  do. 

From  a  joint  connexion  and  unavoidable  coherence  of  which 
propositions  one  with  another,  it  clearly  appears,  that  it  is  not 
weakness,  but  want  of  conscience,  which  is  the  true  distemper  of 
those  persons  who  at  this  day  disturb  the  church. 

2.  The  second  assertion  or  conclusion  was  this,  That  as  such 
weakness  of  conscience  can  upon  no  sufficient  ground  be  actually 
pleaded,  so  upon  much  less  can  it  be  continued  in.  This  must 
needs  be  confessed  by  all,  that  a  weak  conscience  in  the  apostle's 
sense  is  an  imperfection,  and  consequently  ought  by  all  means  to 
be  removed  or  laid  down.  For  as  certainly  as  growth  and  pro- 
ficiency in  knowledge  under  the  means  of  grace  is  a  duty;  so 
certainly  is  it  a  duty  not  to  persist  in  this  weakness  of  con- 
science, which  has  its  foundation  only  in  the  defect  of  such  know- 
ledge.   So  that  St.  Paul  himself,  who  is  here  willing  that  for  the 


484 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIX. 


present  it  should  be  complied  with,  elsewhere  upbraids  and 
reprehends  men  sharply  for  continuing  under  it.  As  in  1  Cor. 
iii.  1,  2,  3,  he  calls  such  "babes"  and  such  as  were  to  be  "fed 
with  milk,  and  not  with  meat."  And  to  show  yet  further  the 
imperfection  of  this  estate,  he  says,  that  upon  this  account  he 
could  not  treat  them  as  spiritual  persons,  but  as  carnal.  The 
same  reprehension  he  repeats  in  Heb.  v.  12,  where  he  again  up- 
braids them  with  his  appellation  of  "babes,"  telling  them,  that 
"whereas  for  the  time  they  ought  to  have  been  teachers  of  others, 
they  continued  in  their  spiritual  childhood  so  long,  that  they  had 
need  that  one  taught  them  again  which  were  the  first  principles 
of  the  oracles  of  God."  And  to  show  that  these  were  such  weak 
consciences  as  we  are  here  discoursing  of,  in  the  14th  verse  he 
opposes  them  to  such  as  were  "of  full  age,  and  that  by  reason  of 
use  had  their  senses  exercised  to  discern  both  good  and  evil." 
That  want  of  which  discernment  is  properly  that  thing  wherein 
this  weakness  of  conscience  does  consist.  Whereupon  the  apostle 
in  the  next  chapter  calls  upon  such  to  "go  on  to  perfection;" 
which  surel)  implies,  that  this  their  present  condition  was  not 
the  perfection  which  they  were  to  rest  in. 

And  it  were  worth  the  while,  in  our  contest  with  the  pre- 
tenders to  weak  or  tender  consciences  amongst  us,  to  inquire  of 
them,  how  long  they  think  it  fit  for  them  to  continue  weak?  and 
whether  they  look  upon  their  weakness  and  ignorance  as  their 
freehold,  and  as  that  which  they  resolve  to  keep  for  term  of  life, 
and  to  live  and  die  babes  in  the  knowledge  of  the  religion  they 
profess,  to  grow  up  into  childhood,  and  at  length  go  out  of  the 
world  infants  and  weaklings  of  threescore  or  fourscore  years  old  ? 

This  certainly  they  must  intend ;  for  so  far  are  they  from  look- 
ing upon  that  weakness  or  tenderness  of  conscience  which  they 
plead  as  an  imperfection,  and  consequently  to  be  outgrown  or 
removed  by  them,  that  they  own  it  as  a  badge  of  a  more  refined 
and  advanced  piety,  and  of  such  a  growth  and  attainment  in  the 
ways  of  God,  that  they  look  down  upon  all  others  as  Christians 
of  a  lower  form,  as  moral  men,  and  ignorant  of  the  mystery  of 
the  gospel :  words  which  I  have  often  heard  from  these  impostors, 
and  which  infallibly  show,  that  the  persons  whom  St.  Paul  dealt 
with,  and  those  whom  we  contend  with,  are  not  the  same  kind  of 
men ;  forasmuch  as  they  own  not  the  same  duty.  But  that,  it 
seems,  which  was  the  infancy  and  defect  of  those  persons,  must 
pass  for  the  perfection,  and  really  is  the  design  of  these.  And 
whereas  St.  Paul  said  to  the  former,  that  "if  they  doubted  they 
were  damned  if  they  eat,"  these  (for  ought  appears)  account  it 
damnation  not  to  doubt;  where  doubting  of  their  duty  may 
prove  a  serving  of  their  interest. 

I  proceed  now  to  the  third  and  last  conclusion.  Which  is  this : 
That  supposing  this  weakness  of  conscience  might  be  both 
pleaded  and  continued,  yet  the  plea  of  it  ought  by  no  means  to 


A  TRUE  STATE  OF  THE  PLEA  OF  A  TENDER  CONSCIENCE.  485 

be  admitted  by  the  civil  magistrate  in  prejudice  to  any  laws, 
either  actually  made  or  to  be  made  by  hirn  for  the  general  good 
of  his  people.  This  was  sufficiently  manifest  in  what  I  laid  down 
before :  to  wit,  that  the  magistrate  is  noways  obliged  to  frame 
his  laws  to  the  good  of  any  particular  persons,  where  it  stands 
separate  from  the  good  of  the  community  or  majority  of  the 
people.  Which  consideration  alone,  though  it  be  sufficient  to 
discharge  the  magistrate  from  any  obligation  to  admit  of  such 
pleas,  yet  there  are  other  and  more  forcible  reasons  why  they  are 
by  no  means  to  be  admitted.    I  shall  assign  two  in  general. 

First,  The  first  taken  from  the  ill  and  fatal  consequences  which 
inevitably  ensue  upon  their  admission. 

Secondly,  The  other  taken  from  the  qualification  and  temper 
of  the  persons  who  make  these  pleas. 

As  for  the  ill  consequences  springing  from  the  admission  of 
them,  though  according  to  the  fertile  nature  of  every  absurd 
principle  they  are  indeed  innumerable,  yet  I  shall  insist  only 
upon  these  three. 

1.  The  first  is,  that  there  can  be  no  bounds  or  limits  put  to 
this  plea,  nor  any  possibility  of  defining  the  just  number  of  par- 
ticulars to  which  it  may  extend.  For  it  being  founded  in  igno- 
rance and  error,  as  has  been  shown,  it  is  evident  that  it  may 
reach  to  all  those  things  of  which  men  may  be  ignorant,  and 
about  which  they  may  err:  so  that  there  is  no  duty,  but  men 
may  doubt  and  scruple  the  doing  of  it,  pretending  that  their 
consciences  are  not  satisfied  that  it  is  a  duty,  or  ought  to  be  done. 
Nor  is  there  any  action  almost  so  wicked  and  unjust,  but  they 
may  pretend  that  their  consciences  either  prompt  them  to  it  as 
necessary,  or  allow  them  in  it  as  lawful.  As  there  was  one  in 
the  late  blessed  times  of  rebellion  and  reformation,  who  murdered 
his  own  mother  for  kneeling  at  the  sacrament,  alleging  that  it 
was  idolatry,  and  that  his  conscience  told  him  it  was  his  duty  to 
destroy  idolaters.  And  let  any  man  living,  if  he  can,  state  ex- 
actly how  far  conscience  will  doubt  and  be  unsatisfied ;  and  give 
me  any  reason,  I  say,  any  solid  reason,  why,  if  it  may  plead  dis- 
satisfaction in  this  or  that  thing,  it  may  not  upon  the  same  prin- 
ciple plead  it  in  any  other  thing  whatsoever.  And  so  if  the 
obligation  of  our  laws  must  then  only  begin,  when  this  plea  shall 
end,  I  fear  we  shall  never  see  either  the  end  of  one,  or  the 
beginning  of  the  other. 

2.  The  second  ill  consequence  is  this :  that  as  there  can  be  no 
bounding  of  this  plea  in  respect  of  the  particulars  about  which 
it  may  be  made;  so  when  it  is  inade  there  can  be  no  possible 
evidence  of  the  sincerity  of  it.  For  all  the  evidence  producible 
must  be  the  word  of  him  who  makes  this  plea:  forasmuch  as  he 
only  can  be  judge  of  his  own  thought  and  conscience,  and  tell 
whether  they  be  really  under  such  a  persuasion  and  dissatisfaction 
or  no.    But  where  men  mav  pretend  conscience  in  the  behalf 

2  s2 


486 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIX. 


of  interest,  I  see  no  reason  why  their  word  should  be  taken  in 
behalf  of  their  conscience.  And  yet  if  we  hold  to  the  principle 
upon  which  this  plea  relies,  no  other  proof  of  it  can  be  had. 
Which  if  it  be  admitted,  I  suppose  there  needs  no  other  argu- 
ment to  demonstrate,  that  this  and  the  former  consequence  to- 
gether are  of  that  absurd  nature  and  malign  influence,  that  they 
must  forthwith  open  the  flood-gates  to  all  confusion,  and  like  a 
mighty  torrent  bear  down  before  them  all  law,  right,  justice,  and 
whatsoever  else  the  societies  of  mankind  are  settled  by  and  sup- 
ported with.  But  to  proceed  to  yet  a  further  and  more  destruc- 
tive consequence.    In  the 

3.  Place,  the  admission  of  this  plea  absolutely  binds  the  hands 
of  the  magistrate,  and  subjects  him  to  the  conscience  of  those 
whose  duty  it  is  to  be  subject  to  him.  For  let  the  civil  power 
make  what  laws  it  will,  if  conscience  shall  come  and  put  in  its 
exception  against  them,  it  must  be  heard,  and  exempt  the  person 
who  makes  the  exception,  from  the  binding  power  of  those  laws. 
For  since  conscience  commands  in  the  name  of  God,  the  issue  of 
the  question  must  be,  whether  God  or  the  magistrate  is  to  be 
obeyed,  and  then  the  decision  is  like  to  be  very  easy.  This 
consequence  is  so  direct,  and  withal  so  strong,  that  there  is  no 
bar  against  it.  So  that  whereas  heretofore  the  magistrate  passed 
for  God's  vicegerent  here  on  earth,  the  weak  conscience  is  now 
resolved  to  keep  that  office  for  itself,  and  to  prefer  the  magistrate 
to  the  dignity  of  being  its  under  officer;  for  the  magistrate 
must  make  only  such  laws  as  such  consciences  will  have  made, 
and  such  laws  only  must  be  obeyed,  as  these  consciences  shall 
judge  fit  to  be  obeyed.  So  that  upon  these  terms  it  is  not  the 
king,  but  the  tender  conscience  that  has  got  the  negative  voice, 
upon  the  making  of  all  our  laws,  and,  which  is  more,  upon  the 
observing  them  too,  when  they  are  made. 

I  dare  affirm  that  it  is  as  impossible  for  any  government  or 
politic  body,  without  a  standing  force,  to  subsist  or  support  itself 
in  the  allowance  of  this  principle,  as  it  is  for  the  natural  body  to 
live  and  thrive  with  a  dagger  sticking  in  its  vitals.  Nor  can  any 
thing  be  fuller  of  contradiction  and  ridiculous  paradox,  than  to 
think  to  reconcile  the  sovereignty  of  the  magistrate,  and  the 
safety  of  government,  with  the  sturdy  pleas  of  dissenting  con- 
sciences. It  being  all  one,  as  if  the  sceptre  should  be  put  into 
the  subject's  hand,  in  order  to  his  being  governed  by  it. 

I  could  add  yet  further,  that,  considering  things  and  persons 
barely  in  themselves,  it  is  ten  to  one  but  God  rather  speaks  in 
the  conscience  of  a  lawful  Christian  magistrate  making  a  law, 
than  in  the  conscience  of  any  private  persons  whatsoever  dissent- 
ing from  it. 

And  thus  much  for  the  general  reason  against  admitting  the 
pleas  of  weak  or  (as  some  falsely  call  them)  tender  consciences. 
The 


A  TRUE  STATE  OF  THE  PLEA  OF  A  TENDER  CONSCIENCE.  487 

Second  genera!  reason  shall  be  taken  from  those  qualities 
which  usually  accompany  the  said  pleas;  of  which  there  are 
two:  1.  Partiality;  2.  Hypocrisy. 

1.  And  first  for  partiality.  Few  make  this  plea  themselves, 
who  being  once  got  into  power  will  endure  it  in  others.  Consult 
history  for  the  practices  of  such  in  Germany,  and  your  own 
memories  for  the  practices  of  the  late  sainfs  in  England.  In 
their  general  comprehensive  toleration,  you  know,  prelacy  stood 
always  joined  with  popery,  and  both  were  excepted  together. 
Nor  was  there  any  toleration  allowed  for  the  liturgy  and  es- 
tablished worship  of  the  church  of  England,  though  the  users  of 
it  pleaded  conscience  never  so  much  for  its  use ;  and  the  known 
laws  of  God  and  man  for  the  rule  of  that  their  conscience. 

But  those  zealots  were  above  that  legal  ordinance  of  doing  as 
they  would  be  done  by;  nor  were  their  consciences  any  longer 
spiritually  weak,  when  their  interest  was  once  grown  temporally 
strong.  And  then,  notwithstanding  all  their  pleas  of  tenderness 
and  outcries  against  persecution,  whoever  came  under  them,  and 
closed  not  with  them,  found  them  to  be  men  whose  bowels  were 
brass,  and  whose  hearts  were  as  hard  as  their  foreheads. 

2.  The  other  qualification  which  generally  goes  along  with  this 
plea,  and  renders  it  not  fit  to  be  admitted,  is  hypocrisy.  Divines 
generally  agree  upon  this  as  a  certain  evidence  of  the  sincerity 
of  the  heart,  when  it  has  an  equal  respect  unto  all  God's  com- 
mands, and  makes  duty  as  duty  one  of  the  principal  reasons  of 
its  obedience ;  the  consequence  of  which  is,  that  its  obedience 
must  needs  be  universal.  Now  upon  the  same  ground,  if  con- 
science be  really,  even  in  their  own  sense,  tender,  and  doubts  of 
the  lawfulness  of  such  or  such  a  practice,  because  it  carries  in  it 
some  appearance  and  semblance  of  evil,  though  yet  it  dare  not 
positively  affirm  that  it  is  so ;  surely  it  must  and  will  be  equally 
afraid  of  every  other  practice  which  carries  in  it  the  same  ap- 
pearance of  evil ;  and  utterly  abhor  and  fly  from  those  practices 
which  the  universal  consent  of  all  nations  and  religions  condemns 
as  evidently  wicked  and  unjust. 

But  the  tenderness  we  have  to  deal  with  is  quite  of  another 
nature,  being  such  a  one  as  makes  men  scruple  at  the  lawfulness 
of  a  set  form  of  divine  worship,  at  the  use  of  some  solemn  rites 
and  ceremonies  in  the  service  of  God ;  but  makes  them  not  stick 
at  all  at  sacrilege,  which  St.  Paul  equals  to  idolatry ;  nor  at  re- 
bellion, which  the  prophet  makes  as  bad  as  witchcraft ;  nor  at 
the  murder  of  their  king,  and  the  robbing  and  undoing  their 
fellow  subjects;  villanies  which  not  only  Christianity  proscribes, 
but  the  common  reason  of  mankind  rises  up  against,  and  by  the 
very  light  of  nature  condemns.  And  did  not  those  who  plead 
tenderness  of  conscience  amongst  us,  do  all  these  things?  nay 
did  they  not  do  them  in  the  very  strength  of  this  plea  ? 

In  a  word,  are  the  particulars  alleged  true,  or  are  .they  not? 


488 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXIX. 


If  not,  then  let  shame,  and  confusion,  and  a  just  judgment  from 
God  light  upon  those  who  make  such  charges,  where  they  are 
not  due.  But  if  all  which  has  been  alleged  be  true,  then  in  the 
name  of  the  God  of  truth,  let  not  those  pass  for  weak,  and  much 
less  for  tender  consciences,  which  can  digest  such  horrid  cla- 
morous impieties.  Nor  let  them  abuse  the  world  nor  disturb 
the  church  by  a  false  cry  of  superstition,  and  a  causeless  separa- 
tion from  her  thereupon  ?  especially  if  they  will  but  calmly  and 
seriously  consider,  whose  ends  by  all  this  they  certainly  serve, 
whose  work  they  do,  and  whose  wages  they  have  so  much  cause 
to  dread. 

In  fine,  the  result  of  the  whole  discourse  is  this:  that  since 
the  weakness  of  conscience,  spoken  of  by  St.  Paul,  is  grounded 
upon  some  ignorance  for  the  present  excusable  ;  and  since  none 
amongst  us,  enjoying  the  means  of  knowledge  daily  held  forth 
by  the  church,  together  with  the  common  use  of  his  reason,  can 
be  excusably  ignorant  of  any  thing  which  he  is  concerned  to 
know,  the  plea  of  such  weakness  can  have  no  place  amongst  us, 
much  less  can  it  be  allowably  continued  in,  and  least  of  all  can 
it  be  suffered  to  control  the  civil  magistrate,  either  in  the  making 
or  the  execution  of  laws:  but  ought  wholly  to  be  rejected,  as 
well  for  its  pernicious  consequences,  to  wit,  that  it  is  boundless, 
and  that  the  truth  of  it  is  noways  discoverable,  and  withal  that 
it  subjects  the  sovereign  power  to  those  who  are  to  be  subject  to 
it  and  governed  by  it :  as  also  for  the  partiality  and  cruelty  of 
its  pleaders,  who  deny  that  to  others  which  they  claim  to  them- 
selves ;  together  with  their  hypocrisy  in  stooping  at  mole-hills 
and  leaping  over  mountains,  in  practising  things  notoriously  un- 
just, while  they  stick  at  things  indifferent,  and  at  the  most  but 
doubtful. 

From  all  which  it  follows,  that  how  much  soever  such  pre- 
tenders may  beguile  factious  and  unstable  minds,  deceiving 
others,  and  being  deceived  themselves;  and  how  much  soever 
they  may  mock  the  powers  of  this  world,  yet  God  is  not  mocked, 
who  searches  the  heart,  and  looks  through  the  pretence,  and  will 
reward  every  man  according  to  his  work,  whatsoever  may  be  his 
profession. 

To  which  God  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all 
praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  ever- 
more. Amen. 


489 


SERMON  XXX. 

CHRISTIANITY    MYSTERIOUS,  AND    THE  WISDOM    OF    GOD  IN  MAKING 

IT  SO. 

[Preached  at  Westminster  Abbey,  April  29,  1694.] 

1  Cor.  ii.  7. 

But  we  speak  the  wisdom  of  God  in  a  mystery 

The  two  great  works  which  God  has  been  pleased  to  signal- 
ize his  infinite  wisdom  and  power  by,  were  the  creation  of  the 
world,  and  the  redemption  of  mankind ;  the  first  of  them  de- 
clared by  Moses,  and  the  other  by  Christ  himself,  "  bringing 
life  and  immortality  to  light  through  the  gospel."  But  yet  so 
that,  as  in  the  opening  of  the  day  the  appearance  of  light  does 
not  presently  and  totally  drive  away  all  darkness,  but  that  some 
degrees  remain  and  mingle  with  it:  so  neither  has  this  glorious 
revelation  of  the  gospel  quite  cleared  off  the  obscurity  of  many 
great  things  revealed  in  it ;  but  that,  as  God  has  hereby  vouch- 
safed us  light  enough  to  inform  and  guide  our  faith,  so  he  has 
left  darkness  enough  to  exercise  it  too.  Upon  which  account 
the  apostle  here  designing  to  set  forth  the  transcendent  wor^h  of 
the  gospel  above  all  other  doctrines  whatsoever,  recommends  it 
to  our  esteem  by  these  two  qualifications  and  properties  emi- 
nently belonging  to  it,  as — 

I.  That  it  is  the  wisdom  of  God  ;  and 

II.  That  it  is  the  wisdom  of  God  in  a  mystery. 

As  to  the  first  of  which,  namely,  the  gospel's  being  the  wisdom 
of  God,  that  is  to  say,  the  grand  instance  and  product  of  it ;  if 
we  would  take  a  survey  of  the  nature  of  wisdom  according  to 
the  sense  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  we  shall  find  Aristotle  in 
the  sixth  of  his  Ethics  and  the  seventh  chapter  defining  it,  vois 
x<u  sxiotr./xri  tdv  rt/tcwrarwv  ■rij  $von :  that  is,  "the  understand- 
ing and  knowledge  of  things  in  their  nature  the  most  excellent 
and  valuable."  Where,  though  it  ought  to  be  supposed  that 
Aristotle  carried  his  notion  no  higher  nor  further  than  the  things 
of  nature,  and  that  St.  Paul  pointed  chiefly  at  things  revealed 
and  supernatural ;  yet  I  cannot  see,  but  that  the  terms  made  use 
of  by  that  great  philosopher  in  the  definition,  or  rather  descrip- 
tion of  wisdom,  laid  down  by  him,  do  with  full  propriety  and  fit- 
ness fall  in  with  the  account  here  given  of  this  divine  wisdom  by 
our  apostle  in  the  text,  and  that,  whether  we  take  it  for  a  wisdom 
respecting  speculation,  or  relating  to  practice;  the  things  treated 

Vol.  I. — 62 


490 


DR.  SOUTtl's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXX. 


of  in  the  gospel,  about  which  the  said  wisdom  is  employed,  being 
certainly  the  noblest  and  most  excellent  that  can  be,  upon  both 
accounts.    And  though  it  be  hard  to  determine  whether  of  the 
two   ought  to  have  the  preeminence ;   yet,  I  think,  we  may 
rationally  enough  conclude,  that  the  wisdom  here  spoken  of  is 
principally  of  a  practical  import ;  as  denoting  to  us  God's  admi- 
rable and  steady  bringing  about  his  great  ends  and  purposes,  by 
means  most  suitable  and  proper  to  them,  and  particularly  his 
accomplishing  his  grand  design  of  mercy  upon  the  world  by  the 
promulgation  of  the  gospel;  a  doctrine  containing  in  it  all  the 
treasures  of  divine  wisdom,  so  far  as  the  same  wisdom  has  thought 
fit  to  reveal  them.     And  yet  such  has  been  the  blindness  and 
baseness  of  men's  minds  even  from  the  apostle's  time  down  along 
to  ours  (as  bad  as  any),  that  this  very  wisdom  has  not  failed  to 
meet  with  a  sect  of  men,  who,  voting  themselves  the  only  wits 
and  wise  men  of  the  world  (as  the  greatest  sots  may  easily  do), 
have  made  it  their  business  to  ridicule  and  reproach  it  as  down- 
right foolishness ;  but  yet  such  a  sort  of  foolishness  (if  the  testi- 
mony of  an  apostle  may  outweigh  the  scoffs  of  a  buffoon),  as 
is  infinitely  wiser  than  all  the  wisdom  of  men.     For  the  very- 
wisest  of  men  do  not  always  compass  what  they  design,  but  this 
certainly  and  effectually  does,  as  being  not  only  the  wisdom ;  but 

Secondly,  The  power  of  God  too,  the  first  infallible,  the  other 
irresistible.  In  a  word,  the  wisdom  here  spoken  of  is  a  messen- 
ger which  always  goes  as  far  as  sent ;  an  instrument  which  never 
fails  or  lurches  the  great  agent  who  employs  it,  either  in  reaching 
the  end  he  directs  it  to,  or  in  finishing  the  work  he  intends  it  for. 
So  that,  in  short,  there  could  not  be  a  higher  and  a  nobler  elogy  to 
express  the  gospel  by,  than  by  representing  it  to  us  as  athe 
wisdom  of  God."  For  as  wisdom  in  general  is  the  noblest  and 
most  sublime  perfection  of  an  intellectual  nature,  and  particularly 
in  God  himself  is  the  leading,  ruling  attribute,  prescribing  to  all 
the  rest ;  so  a  commendation  drawn  from  thence  must  needs  be 
the  most  glorious  that  can  possibly  pass  upon  any  action  or 
design  proceeding  from  such  a  one.  And  the  apostle  seems  here 
most  peculiarly  to  have  directed  this  encomium  of  the  gospel,  as 
a  defiance  to  the  philosophers  of  his  time,  the  flustering  vain 
glorious  Greeks,  who  pretended  so  much  to  magnify,  and  even 
adore  the  wisdom  they  professed,  and,  with  great  modesty,  no 
doubt,  confined  wholly  to  themselves  :  a  wisdom,  I  think,  little 
to  be  envied  them ;  being  such  as  none  who  had  it,  could  be  the 
better,  nor  consequently  the  wiser  for. 

And  thus  much  for  the  first  thing  contained  in  the  words,  and 
proposed  from  them ;  viz.  that  the  gospel  is  the  wisdom  of  God. 
I  proceed  to  the 

II.  Which  we  shall  chiefly  insist  upon,  and  that  is,  concerning 
the  mystcriousness  of  it ;  as  that  it  is  the  wisdom  of  God  in  a  mys- 


CHRISTIANITY  MYSTERIOUS. 


491 


tery.  For  the  prosecution  of  which  we  shall  inquire  into  and 
endeavour  to  give  some  account  of  the  reasons  (so  far  as  we  may 
presume  to  judge  of  them)  why  God  should  deliver  to  mankind 
a  religion  so  full  of  mysteries  as  the  Christian  religion  certainly 
is,  and  was  ever  accounted  to  be.  Now  the  reasons  of  this  in 
general  I  conceive  may  be  stated  upon  these  two  grounds, 

1.  The  nature  and  quality  of  the  things  treated  of  in  the 
Christian  religion.  And 

2.  The  ends  to  which  all  religion,  both  as  to  the  general  and 
particular  nature  of  it,  is  designed,  with  relation  to  the  influence 
which  it  ought  to  have  upon  the  minds  of  men. 

1.  And  first  of  all,  for  the  nature  of  the  things  themselves, 
which  are  the  subject  matter  of  the  Christian  religion ;  there  are 
in  them  these  three  qualifications  and  properties,  which  do  and 
must  of  necessity  render  them  mysterious,  obscure,  and  of  diffi- 
cult apprehension.  As, 

(1.)  Their  surpassing  greatness  and  inequality  to  the  mind  of 
man.  The  Christian  religion,  as  to  a  great  part  of  it,  is  but  a 
kind  of  comment  upon  the  divine  nature ;  an  instrument  to  con- 
vey right  conceptions  of  God  into  the  soul  of  man,  so  far  as  it  is 
capable  of  receiving  them.  But  now  God,  we  know,  is  an  infi- 
nite being,  without  any  bounds  or  limitations  of  his  essence, 
wonderful  in  his  actings,  inconceivable  in  his  purposes,  and  inex- 
pressible in  his  attributes ;  which  yet,  as  great  as  they  are,  if 
severally  taken,  give  us  but  an  incomplete  representation  of  him. 
He  is  another  world  in  himself,  too  high  for  our  speculations,  and 
too  great  for  our  descriptions.  For  how  can  such  vast  and 
mighty  things  be  crowded  into  a  little,  finite  understanding! 
Heaven,  I  confess,  enters  into  us,  as  we  must  into  that,  by  a  very 
narrow  passage.  But  how  shall  the  king  of  glory,  whom  the 
heavens  themselves  cannot  contain,  enter  in  by  these  doors?  by 
a  weak  imagination,  a  slender  notion,  and  a  contracted  intellect? 
How  shall  these  poor  short  faculties  measure  the  lengths  of  his 
eternity,  the  breadths  and  expansions  of  his  immensity,  and  the 
heights  of  his  prescience,  and  the  depths  of  his  decrees  ?  and"  last 
of  all,  that  unutterable,  incomprehensible  mystery  of  two  natures 
united  into  one  person,  and  again  of  one  and  the  same  nature 
diffused  into  a  triple  personality?  All  which  being  some  of  the 
prime,  fundamental  matters  treated  of  in  our  religion,  how  can  it 
be  otherwise  than  a  system  of  mysteries,  and  a  knot  of  dark, 
inexplicable  propositions?  Since  it  exhibits  to  us  such  things  as 
the  very  condition  of  our  nature  renders  us  uncapable  of  clearly 
understanding. 

The  Socinians  indeed,  who  would  obtrude  upon  the  world  (and 
of  late  more  daringly  than  ever)  a  new  Christianity  of  their  own 
inventing,  will  admit  of  nothing  mysterious  in  this  religion,  no- 
thing which  the  natural  reason  of  man  cannot  have  a  clear  and 
comprehensive  perception  of:  and  this  not  only  in  defiance  of  the 


492 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  xxx. 


express  words  of  scripture  so  frequently  and  fully  affirming  the 
contrary,  but  also  of  the  constant,  universal  sense  of  all  antiquity, 
unanimously  confessing  an  incomprehensibility  in  many  of  the 
articles  of  the  Christian  faith.  So  that  these  bold  persons  stand 
alone  by  themselves,  upon  a  new  bottom,  and  an  upstart  prin- 
ciple, not  much  above  a  hundred  years  old,  spitting  upon  all 
antiquity  before  them ;  and  (as  some  who  have  written  against 
them  have  well  observed  of  them)  are  the  only  sect  of  men  in  the 
world,  who  ever  pretended  to  set  up  or  own  a  religion  without 
either  a  mystery  or  a  sacrifice  belonging  to  it.  For  as  we  have 
shown  that  they  deny  the  first,  so  they  equally  explode  the  latter, 
by  denying  Christ  to  be  properly  a  priest,  or  his  death  to  have 
been  a  propitiatory  oblation  for  the  sins  of  the  world.  And 
now  are  not  these  blessed  new  lights,  think  we,  fit  to  be  encou- 
raged, courted,  and  have  panegyrics  made  upon  their  wonderful 
abilities,  forsooth?  Whilst  they  on  the  other  side  are  employing 
the  utmost  of  those  abilities  (such  as  they  are)  in  blaspheming 
our  Saviour  and  overturning  our  religion?  But  "this  is  their 
hour,  and  the  power  of  darkness."  For  it  is  a  truth  too  manifest 
to  be  denied,  that  there  have  been  more  innovations  upon,  and 
blasphemies  against  the  chief  articles  of  our  faith  published 
in  this  kingdom,  and  that  after  a  more  audacious  and  scandalous 
manner,  within  these  several  years  last  past,  than  have  been 
known  here  for  some  centuries  of  years  before,  even  those  times 
of  confusion  both  in  church  and  state  betwixt  forty-one  and 
sixty  not  excepted:  and  what  this  may  produce  and  end  in,  God 
only  at  present  knows,  and  I  wish  the  whole  nation  may  not  at 
length  feel. 

(2.)  A  second  qualification  of  the  chief  things  treated  of  in  our 
religion,  and  which  must  needs  render  them  mysterious,  is  their 
spirituality  and  abstraction  from  all  sensible  and  corporeal  matter. 
Of  which  sort  of  things  it  is  impossible  for  the  understanding  of 
man  to  form  to  itself  an  exact  idea  or  representation.  So  that 
when  we  hear  or  read  that  God  is  a  spirit,  and  that  angels  and 
the  souls  of  men  are  spirits,  our  apprehensions  are  utterly  at  a 
loss  how  to  frame  any  notion  or  resemblance  of  them,  but  are  put 
to  float  and  wander  in  an  endless  maze  of  guesses  and  conjec- 
tures, and  know  not  certainly  what  to  fix  upon.  For  in  this  case 
we  can  fetch  in  no  information  or  relief  to  our  understandings 
from  our  senses ;  no  picture  or  draught  of  these  things  from  the 
reports  of  the  eye ;  but  we  are  left  entirely  to  the  uncertainties 
of  fancy,  to  the  flights  and  ventures  of  a  bold  imagination.  And 
here  to  illustrate  the  case  a  little,  let  us  imagine  a  man  who  was 
born  blind,  able  upon  bare  hearsay  to  conceive  in  his  mind  all  the 
varieties  and  curiosities  of  colour,  to  draw  an  exact  scheme  of 
Constantinople,  or  a  map  of  France ;  to  describe  the  towns, 
point  out  the  rivers,  and  distinguish  the  situations  of  these,  and 
the  like  great  and  extraordinary  places :  and  when  such  a  one  is 


CHRISTIANITY  MYSTERIOUS. 


493 


able  to  do  all  this,  and  not  before,  then  perhaps  may  we  also 
apprehend  what  a  spirit,  an  angel,  or  an  immaterial  being  is. 
The  difficulty  of  understanding  which  sufficiently  appears  from 
this  one  consideration :  That  in  all  the  descriptions  which  we 
make  of  God,  angels,  and  spirits,  we  still  describe  them  by  such 
things  as  we  see,  and  when  we  have  done,  we  profess  that  they  are 
invisible.  But  then  to  do  this  argument  right  again  on  the  other 
side ;  as  it  would  be  extremely  sottish  and  irrational  for  a  blind 
man  to  conclude  and  affirm  positively,  that  there  neither  are  nor 
can  be  any  such  things  as  colours,  pictures,  or  landscapes,  because 
he  finds  that  he  cannot  form  to  himself  any  true  notion,  idea,  or 
mental  perception  of  them:  so  would  it  be  equally,  or  rather 
superlatively  more  unreasonable,  for  us  to  deny  the  great  articles 
of  our  Christianity,  because  we  cannot  frame  in  our  minds  any 
clear,  explicit,  and  exact  representation  of  them.  And  yet  this 
is  the  true  state  of  the  whole  matter,  and  of  the  ratiocination  of 
some  men  about  it,  how  absurd  and  inconsequent  soever  we  see 
it  is.  Let  this  therefore  be  another  and  a  second  cause,  why  the 
Christian  religion  which  treats  of,  and  is  conversant  about  such 
things,  must  of  necessity  be  mysterious. 

(3.)  A  third  property  of  matters  belonging  to  Christianity, 
and  which  also  renders  them  mysterious,  is  their  strangeness  and 
unreducibleness  to  the  common  methods  and  observations  of  na- 
ture. I  for  my  part  cannot  look  upon  any  thing  (whatsoever 
others  can)  as  a  more  fundamental  article  of  the  Christian  religion 
than  Christ's  satisfaction  for  sin ;  by  which  alone  the  lost  sons  of 
Adam  are  reconciled  to  their  offended  God,  and  so  put  into  new 
capacities  of  salvation ;  and  yet  perhaps  there  is  nothing  more 
surprising,  strange,  and  out  of  the  road  of  common  reason  than 
this,  if  compared  with  the  general  course  and  way  of  men's  act- 
ing. For  that  he  who  was  the  offended  person  should  project 
and  provide  a  satisfaction  to  himself  in  the  behalf  of  him  who 
had  offended  him,  and  with  so  much  zeal  concern  himself  to  soli- 
cit a  reconciliation  with  those  whom  he  had  no  need  of  being 
reconciled  unto,  but  might  with  equal  justice  and  honour  have 
destroyed  them,  was  a  thing  quite  beside  the  common  course  of 
the  world ;  and  much  more  was  it  so,  that  a  father  should  deliver 
up  an  innocent  and  infinitely  beloved  son  to  be  sacrificed  for  the 
redemption  of  his  justly  hated  and  abhorred  enemies ;  and  on  the 
other  hand,  that  a  son  who  loved  his  father  as  much  as  he  could 
be  loved  by  him,  should  lay  down  his  life  for  the  declared  rebels 
and  enemies  of  him  whom  he  so  transcendently  loved,  and  of  him- 
self too:  this,  I  say,  was  such  a  transaction  as  we  can  find 
nothing  like  or  analogous  to  in  all  the  dealings  of  men,  and  cannot 
but  be  owned  as  wholly  beside,  if  not  also  directly  contrary  to  aD 
human  methods.  And  so  true  is  this,  that  several  things  ex- 
pressly affirmed  of  God  in  scripture  relating  to  the  prime  articles 
of  our  faith  are  denied  or  eluded  by  the  Arians  and  Socinians, 

2T 


494 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXX. 


because  they  cross  and  contradict  the  notions  taken  up  by  them 
from  what  they  have  observed  in  created  beings,  and  particularly 
in  men :  which  yet  is  a  gross  fallacy  and  inconsequence  conclud- 
ing ab  imparibus  tanquam  paribus,  and  more  than  sufficiently 
confuted  and  blown  off  by  that  one  passage  of  the  prophet  con- 
cerning Almighty  God ;  that  "  his  thoughts  are  not  as  our 
thoughts,  nor  his  ways  as  our  ways,"  Isa.  lv.  8.  To  which  we 
may  add,  that  neither  is  his  nature  as  our  nature,  nor  his  divine 
person  as  our  persons.  And  if  so,  where  is  the  Socinian  logic  in 
arguing  from  one  to  the  other?  And  yet  it  is  manifest,  that 
they  hardly  make  use  of  any  other  way  of  arguing  concerning 
the  main  points  in  controversy  between  them  and  the  church 
but  this. 

But  there  are  also  two  other  principal  articles  of  the  Christian 
religion,  which  do  as  much  transcend  the  common  notice  and  ob- 
servation of  mankind  as  the  former.  One  of  which  is  the  con- 
version and  change  of  a  man's  sinful  nature,  commonly  called  the 
work  of  regeneration,  or  the  new  birth;  concerning  which  men 
are  apt  to  wonder  (and  deservedly  too)  by  what  strange  power 
and  efficacy  it  should  come  to  pass,  that  ever  any  one  should  be 
brought  to  conquer  and  shake  off  those  inveterate  appetites  and 
desires  which  are  both  so  violent  in  their  actings,  and  so  early  in 
their  original,  as  being  born  with  him;  and  to  have  other  new 
ones,  and  those  absolutely  contrary  to  the  former  planted  in  their 
room.  So  that  when  our  Saviour,  in  John  iii.,  discoursed  of 
these  things  to  Nicodemus,  a  great  Rabbi  amongst  the  Jews,  and 
told  him  that  he  must  be  born  again ;  he  was  presently  amazed 
and  nonplussed  at  it,  as  at  a  great  paradox  and  impossibility ;  and 
forthwith  began  to  question,  "How  can  these  things  be?"  In 
which  indeed  he  said  no  more  than  what  the  hearts  of  most  men 
living  are  apt  to  say  concerning  most  of  the  articles  of  our 
Christian  religion. 

But,  above  all,  the  article  of  the  resurrection  seems  to  lie  mar- 
vellously cross  to  the  common  experience  of  mankind.  For  who 
ever  was  yet  seen  by  them,  after  a  total  consumption  into  dust 
and  ashes,  to  rise  again,  and  to  resume  the  same  numerical  body? 
This  is  a  thing  which  amongst  all  the  rare  occurrences  of  the 
world,  all  the  wonders  and  anomalies  of  nature,  was  never  yet 
met  with  in  any  one  single  instance;  and  consequently  men 
must  needs  be  apt  to  startle,  and  to  be  full  of  thought  and  scruple, 
upon  the  proposal  of  so  strange  a  thing  to  their  understandings. 
And  if  any  one  should  think  that  he  can  make  this  out  by  bare 
reason,  as  possibly  some  opiniators  may,  let  him  by  all  means  in 
the  next  place  try  the  strength  of  his  doughty  reason  about 
transubstantiation,  or  turn  knight  errant  in  divinity,  encounter 
giants  and  windmills,  and  adventure  to  explain  things  impossible 
to  be  explained.  This  therefore  is  a  third  cause  of  the  unavoid- 
able mysteriousness  of  the  chief  articles  of  the  Christian  religion ; 


CHRISTIANITY  MYSTERIOUS. 


495 


namely  that  most  of  them  fall  neither  within  the  common  course 
of  men's  actings,  nor  the  compass  of  their  observation. 

And  thus  much  for  the  first  ground  of  the  gospel's  being  de- 
livered to  the  world  in  a  mystery;  namely,  the  nature  and 
quality  of  the  things  treated  of  in  the  gospel.    I  come  now  to 

2.  The  second  ground,  which  is  stated  upon  some  of  the  prin- 
cipal ends  and  designs  of  religion.  But  before  I  enter  upon  the 
discussion  of  this,  may  it  not  be  objected  that  the  grand  design 
of  religion  is  to  engage  men  in  the  practice  of  such  things  as  it 
commands ;  and  that  this  must  needs  be  so  much  the  more  easily 
effected,  by  how  much  the  more  clearly  such  things  are  repre- 
sented to  men's  understandings,  without  any  mystery  or  obscurity 
in  them.  Forasmuch  as  the  way  to  obey  a  law  is  to  know  it : 
and  the  way  to  know  it  is  to  have  it  plainly  and  clearly  pro- 
pounded to  such  as  are  concerned  about  it. 

Now  to  this  I  answer,  first,  that  it  is  as  much  the  design  of 
religion  to  oblige  men  to  believe  the  credenda,  as  to  practise  the 
agenda  of  it:  and  secondly,  that  notwithstanding  the  obscurity 
and  mysteriousness  of  the  credenda,  considered  in  themselves, 
there  is  yet  as  clear  a  reason  for  the  belief  of  these,  as  for  the 
practice  of  the  other.  They  exceed  indeed  the  natural  force  of 
human  reason  to  comprehend  them  scientifically,  and  are  therefore 
proposed,  not  to  our  knowledge,  but  to  our  belief;  forasmuch  as 
belief  supplies  the  want  of  knowledge,  where  knowledge  is  not  to 
be  had;  and  is  properly  the  mind's  assent  to  a  thing  upon  the 
credit  of  his  testimony  who  shall  report  it  to  us.  And  thus  we 
assent  to  the  great  and  mysterious  points  of  our  faith :  for  know 
and  understand  them  thoroughly  we  cannot ;  but  since  God  has 
revealed  and  affirmed  them  to  be  true,  we  may  with  the  highest 
reason,  upon  his  bare  word,  believe  and  assent  to  them  as  such. 

But  then,  as  for  those  things  that  concern  our  practice,  (upon 
which  only  the  objection  proceeds)  they  indeed  are  of  that  clear- 
ness, that  innate  evidence  and  perspicuity,  even  in  themselves, 
that  they  do,  as  it  were,  meet  our  understandings  half  way,  and 
being  once  proposed  to  us,  need  not  our  study,  but  only  our  ac- 
ceptance ;  as  presenting  themselves  to  our  first,  our  easiest,  and 
most  early  apprehensions.  So  that  in  some  things  it  is  much 
more  difficult  for  a  man,  upon  a  very  ordinary  use  of  his  judg- 
ment, to  be  ignorant  of  his  duty  than  to  learn  it ;  as  it  would  be 
much  harder  for  him,  while  he  is  awake,  to  keep  his  eyes  always 
shut  than  open. 

In  sum,  the  articles  of  our  faith  are  those  depths  in  which 
the  elephant  may  swim ;  and  the  rules  of  our  practice  those  shal- 
lows in  which  the  lamb  may  wade.  But  as  both  light  and  dark- 
ness make  but  one  natural  day ;  so  here,  both  the  clearness  of 
the  agenda,  and  the  obscurity  or  mystery  of  the  credenda  of  the 
gospel,  constitute  but  one  entire  religion.  And  so  much  in 
answer  to  this  objection ;  which  being  thus  removed,  I  come  now 


496  dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  XXX. 

to  show  that  the  mysteriousness  of  those  parts  of  the  gospel, 
called  the  credenda,  or  matters  of  our  faith,  is  most  subservient 
to  the  great,  important  ends  of  religion ;  and  that  upon  these 
following  accounts. 

(1.)  Because  religion  in  the  prime  institution  of  it  was  designed 
to  make  impressions  of  awe  and  reverential  fear  upon  men's 
minds.  The  mind  of  man  is  naturally  licentious,  and  there  is 
nothing  which  it  is  more  averse  from  than  duty :  nothing  which 
it  more  abhors  than  restraint.  It  would,  if  let  alone,  launch  out 
and  wantonize  in  a  boundless  enjoyment  and  gratification  of  all 
its  appetites  and  inclinations.  And  therefore  God,  who  designed 
man  to  a  supernatural  end,  thought  fit  also  to  engage  him  to  a 
way  of  living  above  the  bare  course  of  nature:  and  for  that 
purpose  to  oblige  him  to  a  severe  abridgment  and  control  of 
his  mere  natural  desires.  And  this  can  never  be  done,  but  by 
imprinting  upon  his  judgment  such  apprehensions  of  dread  and 
terror,  as  may  stave  off  an  eager  and  luxurious  appetite  from  its 
desired  satisfactions,  which  the  infinite  wisdom  of  God  has 
thought  fit  in  some  measure  to  do,  by  nonplussing  the  world  with 
certain  new  and  unaccountable  revelations  of  himself  and  the 
divine  methods  of  a  mysterious  religion. 

To  protect  which  from  the  saucy  encroachments  of  bold  minds, 
he  has  hedged  it  in  with  a  sacred  and  majestic  obscurity  in  some 
of  the  principal  parts  of  it :  which  that  it  is  the  most  effectual 
way  to  secure  a  reverence  to  it  from  such  minds,  is  as  certain  as 
the  universal  experience  of  mankind  can  make  it;  it  being  an 
observation  too  frequent  and  common  to  be  at  all  doubted  of,  that 
1  familiarity  breeds  contempt and  it  holds  not  more  in  point 
of  converse  than  in  point  of  knowledge.  For  as  easiness  of  ac- 
cess, frankness  and  openness  of  behaviour,  does  by  degrees  lay 
a  man  open  to  scorn  and  contempt,  especially  from  some  disposi- 
tions ;  so  a  full  inspection  and  penetration  into  all  the  difficulties 
and  secrets  of  any  object  is  apt  to  make  the  mind  insult  over  it, 
as  over  a  conquered  thing ;  for  all  knowledge  is  a  kind  of  con- 
quest over  the  thing  we  know. 

Distance  preserves  respect,  and  we  still  imagine  some  tran- 
scendent worth  in  things  above  our  reach.  Moses  was  never 
more  reverenced  than  when  he  wore  his  veil.  Nay,  the  very 
sanctum  sanctorum  would  not  have  had  such  a  veneration  from  the 
Jews  had  they  been  permitted  to  enter  into  it,  and  to  gaze  and 
stare  upon  it,  as  often  as  they  did  upon  the  other  parts  of  the 
temple.  The  high  priest  himself,  who  alone  was  suffered  to 
enter  into  it,  yet  was  to  do  so  but  once  a  year;  lest  the  fre- 
quency of  the  sight  might  insensibly  lessen  that  adoration  which 
so  sacred  a  thing  was  still  to  maintain  upon  his  thoughts. 

Many  men,  who  in  their  absence  have  been  great  and  admira- 
ble for  their  fame,  find  a  diminution  of  that  respect  upon  their 
personal  presence :  even  the  great  apostle  St.  Paul  himself  found 


CHRISTIANITY  MYSTERIOUS. 


497 


it  so ;  as  he  himself  tells  us,  2  Cor.  x.  10.  And  upon  the  same 
account  it  is,  that  the  kings  of  some  nations,  to  keep  up  a  living 
and  a  constant  awe  of  themselves  in  the  minds  of  their  subjects, 
show  themselves  to  them  but  once  a  year :  and  even  that  perhaps 
may  be  something  with  the  oftenest,  considering  that  persons  whose 
greatness  generally  consists  rather  in  the  height  of  their  condition, 
than  in  the  depth  of  their  understanding,  seldom  appear,  freely 
and  openlv,  but  they  expose  themselves  in  more  senses  than  one. 

In  all  great  respect  or  honour  shown,  there  is  something  of 
wonder ;  but  a  thing  often  seen,  we  know,  be  it  never  so  excel- 
lent, yet  ceasing  thereby  to  be  new,  it  ceases  also  to  be  wondered 
at.  Forasmuch  as  it  is  not  the  worth  or  excellency,  but  the 
strangeness  of  a  thing  which  draws  the  eyes  and  admiration  of 
men  after  it ;  for  can  any  thing  in  nature  be  imagined  more 
glorious  and  beautiful  than  the  sun  shining  in  his  full  might,  and 
yet  how  many  more  spectators  and  wonderers  does  the  same  sun 
find  under  an  eclipse ! 

But  to  pursue  this  notion  and  observation  yet  further,  I  con- 
ceive it  will  not  be  amiss  to  consider,  how  it  has  been  the  custom 
of  all  the  sober  and  wise  nations  of  the  world  still  to  reserve  the 
great  rites  of  their  religion  in  occulto.  Thus,  how  studiously 
did  the  Egyptians,  those  great  masters  of  all  learning,  lock  up 
their  sacred  things  from  all  access  and  knowledge  of  the  vulgar! 
whereupon  their  gods  were  pictured  and  represented  with  their 
finger  upon  their  mouth,  thereby,  as  it  were,  enjoining  silence  to 
their  votaries,  and  forbidding  all  publication  of  their  mysteries. 
Nor  was  this  all,  but  for  the  better  concealing  of  the  sacra  area- 
iia  of  their  religion,  they  used  also  a  peculiar  character  unknown 
to  the  common  people,  and  understood  only  by  themselves ;  and 
last  of  all,  that  they  might  yet  the  more  surely  keep  ofT  all 
others  from  any  acquaintance  with  these  secrets,  the  priesthood 
was  made  hereditary  amongst  them,  by  which  means  they  easilv 
secured  and  confined  the  knowledge  of  their  sacerdotal  rites 
whollv  within  their  own  family.  The  like  also  is  reported  of 
the  Phoenicians,  the  Babylonians,  and  the  Grecians,  that  they 
had  their        ypou.aaro,  and  their  *apaxr^pac,  their  sacred 

and  peculiar  way  of  writing,  by  which  they  rescued  the  reverend 
mysteries  of  their  religion  from  the  rude  inspection  of  the  rout. 
And  lastly,  that  the  same  course  of  secresy  and  concealment 
was  also  followed  by  the  Romans,  though  in  a  different  wav,  and 
not  by  the  use  of  such  peculiar  characters,  is  sufficiently  evident, 
from  that  known  introduction  and  prologue  to  their  sacred  rites, 
Procul  este  profani ;  by  which  they  drove  far  away  the  profane, 
and  such  were  all  those  accounted  who  were  not  actually  engaged 
in  the  said  religious  performances.  And  now  to  what  purpose 
do  these  several  instances  serve,  but  to  show  us,  that  as  in  the 
Jewish  church  the  people  were  not  suffered  to  enter  into  the 
holv  of  holies,  nor  to  pry  or  look  into  the  ark,  no,  nor  so  much 

Vol.  I.— 63  2  t  2 


498 


DR.  SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXX. 


as  to  touch  it ;  and  all  this  by  the  particular,  express  prohibition 
of  God  himself ;  so  amongst  the  heathens,  the  most  civilized, 
learned,  and  best  reputed  nations  for  wisdom  have,  by  the  bare 
light  and  conduct  of  their  natural  reason,  still  taken  the  same 
way  to  establish  in  men's  minds  a  veneration  for  their  religion : 
that  is,  by  keeping  the  chief  parts  and  mysteries  of  it  shut  up 
from  the  promiscuous  view  and  notice  of  that  sort  of  men,  who 
are  but  too  quickly  brought  (God  knows)  to  slight  and  nauseate 
what  they  once  think  they  understand. 

Now  that  the  several  religions  of  the  forementioned  nations  of 
the  Gentiles  were  false  and  idolatrous,  I  readily  own  ;  but  that 
their  method  of  preserving  the  reverence  of  them  (which  is  all 
that  I  here  insist  upon)  was  founded  upon  any  persuasion  they 
had  of  the  falsehood  and  idolatry  of  the  said  religions,  this  I 
absolutely  deny ;  since  it  is  not  imaginable  that  any  sort  of  men 
whatsoever  could  heartily  own  and  profess  any  sort  of  religion, 
which  they  themselves  fully  believed  to  be  false ;  and  therefore 
since  it  could  not  be  but  that  they  believed  their  several  religions 
true,  though  really  and  indeed  they  were  not  so,  yet  the  way 
which  they  took  to  keep  up  an  awful  esteem  of  them  in  the 
hearts  of  such  as  professed  them,  was  no  doubt  founded  upon  an 
excellent  philosophy  and  knowledge  of  the  temper  of  man's 
mind,  in  relation  to  sacred  matters.  So  that,  although  their 
subject  was  bad,  yet  their  argumentation  and  discourse  upon  it 
was  highly  rational. 

(2.)  A  second  ground  of  the  mysteriousness  of  religion,  as  it 
is  delivered  by  God  to  mankind,  is  his  most  wise  purpose  thereby 
to  humble  the  pride  and  haughtiness  of  man's  reason.  A  quality 
so  peculiarly  odious  to  God,  that  it  may  be  said,  not  so  much  to 
imprint  upon  men  the  image,  as  to  communicate  to  them  the  very 
essence  of  Lucifer.  The  way  by  which  man  first  fell  from  his 
original  integrity  and  happiness  was  by  pride,  founded  upon  an 
irregular  desire  of  knowledge  ;  and  therefore  it  seems  to  be  a 
course  most  agreeable  to  the  divine  wisdom  to  contrive  man's 
recovery  by  such  a  method  as  should  abase  and  nonplus  him  in 
that  very  perfection,  whereof  the  ambitious  improvement  first 
cast  him  down  from  that  glorious  condition.  In  short,  man 
would  be  like  God  in  knowledge,  and  so  he  fell ;  and  now  if  he 
will  be  like  him  in  happiness  too,  God  will  effect  it  in  such  a 
way,  as  shall  convince  him  to  his  face  that  he  knows  nothing. 
The  whole  course  of  his  salvation  shall  be  all  riddle  and  mystery 
to  him ;  he  shall,  as  I  may  so  express  it,  be  carried  up  to  heaven 
in  a  cloud.  Instead  of  evidence  springing  from  things  them- 
selves, and  clear  knowledge  growing  from  such  an  evidence,  his 
understanding  must  now  be  contented  with  the  poor  dim  light  of 
faith ;  which,  as  I  have  shown,  guides  only  in  the  strength  and 
light  of  another's  knowledge,  and  is  properly  a  seeing  with 
another's  eyes,  as  being  otherwise  wholly  unable  to  inform  us 


CHRISTIANITY  MYSTERIOUS. 


499 


about  the  great  things  of  our  peace,  by  an  immediate  inspection 
of  those  things  themselves. 

Whereupon  we  find  the  gospel  set  up,  as  it  were,  in  triumph 
over  all  that  wisdom  and  philosophy  which  the  learned  and  more 
refined  parts  of  the  world  so  much  boasted  of,  and  valued  them- 
selves upon ;  as  we  have  it  in  1  Cor.  i.  from  the  17th  to  the 
end  of  the  chapter:  "Where  is  the  wise,  where  is  the  scribe, 
and  where  is  the  disputer  of  this  world  ?"  God  is  there  said  to 
have  made  foolish  the  very  wisdom  of  it.  So  that  when  "  the 
world  by  wisdom  knew  not  God that  is,  by  all  their  philosophy 
could  not  find  out,  either  how  he  was  to  be  served  or  by  what 
means  to  be  enjoyed,  this  grand  discovery  was  made  to  them  by 
"  the  foolishness  of  preaching"  (as  the  world  then  esteemed  it); 
nay,  and  of  preaching  the  cross  too ;  a  thing  utterly  exploded 
both  by  Jew  and  Greek,  as  the  greatest  absurdity  imaginable, 
and  contrary  to  all  their  received  principles  and  reasonings  about 
the  way  of  man's  attaining  to  true  happiness.  And  yet  as  high 
as  they  bore  themselves,  their  strongest  reasonings  were  to  bend 
to  this  weakness  of  God  (as  the  apostle  in. derision  of  those 
who  thought  it  so  there  calls  it),  and  their  sublimest  wisdom  to 
stoop  to  this  foolishness,  if  so  be  they  were  not  resolved  to  be 
too  strong  and  too  wise,  forsooth,  to  be  saved.  For  as  the 
primitive  effect  of  knowledge  was  first  to  puff  up  and  then  to 
throw  down ;  so  the  contrary  method  of  grace  and  faith  is  first 
to  depress,  and  then  to  advance. 

The  difficulty  and  strangeness  of  some  of  the  chief  articles  of 
our  religion,  such  as  are  those  of  the  trinity  and  of  the  incarna- 
tion and  satisfaction  of  Christ,  are  notable  instruments  in  the 
hand  of  God  to  keep  the  soul  low  and  humble,  and  to  check 
those  self-complacencies  which  it  is  apt  to  grow  into  by  an  over- 
weening conceit  of  its  own  opinions,  more  than  by  any  other 
thing  whatsoever.  For  man  naturally  is  scarce  so  fond  of  the 
offspring  of  his  body,  as  of  that  of  his  soul.  His  notions  are 
his  darlings ;  so  that  neither  children  nor  self  are  half  so  dear  to 
him  as  the  only  begotten  of  his  mind.  And  therefore,  in  the 
dispensations  of  religion  God  will  have  his  only-begotten,  this 
best-beloved,  this  Isaac  of  our  souls  (above  all  other  offerings 
that  a  man  can  bring  him)  to  be  sacrificed  and  given  up  to  him. 

(3.)  God  in  great  wisdom  has  been  pleased  to  put  a  mysteri- 
ousness  into  the  greatest  articles  of  our  religion,  thereby  to 
engage  us  in  a  closer  and  more  diligent  search  into  them.  He 
would  have  them  the  objects  of  our  study,  and  for  that  purpose 
has  rendered  them  hard  and  difficult.  For  no  man  studies  things 
plain  and  evident,  and  such  as  by  their  native  clearness  do  even 
prevent  our  search,  and  of  their  own  accord  offer  themselves  to 
our  understandings.  The  foundation  of  all  inquiry  is  the  ob- 
scurity as  well  as  worth  of  the  thing  inquired  after.  And  God 
has  thought  good  to  make  the  constitution  and  complexion  of  our 


500 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXX. 


religion  such  as  may  fit  it  to  be  our  business  and  our  task;  to 
require  and  take  up  all  our  intellectual  strengths,  and,  in  a  word, 
to  try  the  force  of  our  best,  our  noblest,  and  most  active  faculties. 
For  if  it  were  not  so,  then  surely  human  literature  could  noways 
promote  the  study  of  divinity,  nor  could  skill  in  the  liberal  arts 
and  sciences  be  any  step  to  raise  us  to  those  higher  speculations. 
But  so  the  experience  of  the  world  (maugre  all  fanatic  pretences, 
all  naked  truths,  and  naked  gospels,  or  rather  shameful  naked- 
ness, instead  of  either  truth  or  gospel)  has  ever  yet  found  it  to  be. 
For  still  the  schools  are  and  must  be  the  standing  nurseries  of 
the  church :  and  all  the  cultivation  and  refinement  they  can  be- 
stow upon  the  best  wits  in  the  use  of  the  most  unwearied  industry, 
are  but  a  means  to  facilitate  their  advance  higher,  and  to  let  them 
in  more  easily  at  the  strait  gate  of  those  more  hidden  and  involved 
propositions,  which  Christianity  would  employ  and  exercise  the 
mind  of  a  man  with.  For  suppose  that  we  could  grasp  in  the 
whole  compass  of  nature,  as  to  all  the  particulars  and  varieties  of 
being  and  motion,  yet  shall  we  find  it  a  vast,  if  not  an  impossible 
leap  from  thence  to  ascend  to  the  full  comprehension  of  any  one 
of  God's  attributes,  and  much  more  from  thence  to  the  mysterious 
economy  of  the  divine  persons ;  and  lastly,  to  the  astonishing  work 
of  the  world's  redemption  by  the  blood  of  the  Son  of  God  himself, 
condescending  to  be  a  man,  that  he  might  die  for  us.  All  which 
were  things  hidden  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  in  spite  of  all 
their  wisdom  and  prudence;  as  being  heights  above  the  reach, 
and  depths  beyond  the  fathom  of  any  mortal  intellect. 

We  are  commanded  by  Christ  to  search  the  scriptures  as  the 
great  repository  of  all  the  truths  and  mysteries  of  our  religion, 
and  whosoever  shall  apply  himself  to  a  thorough  performance  of 
this  high  command,  shall  find  difficulty  and  abstruseness  enough 
in  the  things  searched  into  to  perpetuate  his  search.  For  they 
are  a  rich  mine,  which  the  greatest  wit  and  diligence  may  dig  in 
for  ever,  and  still  find  new  matter  to  entertain  the  busiest  con- 
templation with,  even  to  the  utmost  period  of  the  most  extended 
life.  For  no  man  can  outlive  the  reasons  of  inquiry,  so  long  as 
he  carries  any  thing  of  ignorance  about  him:  and  that  every 
man  must  and  shall  do  while  he  is  in  this  state  of  mortality. 
For  he,  who  himself  is  but  a  part  of  nature,  shall  never  compass 
or  comprehend  it  all. 

Truth,  we  are  told,  dwells  low,  and  in  a  bottom ;  and  the  most 
valued  things  of  the  creation  are  concealed  and  hidden  by  the 
great  Creator  of  them  from  the  common  view  of  the  world. 
Gold  and  diamonds,  with  the  most  precious  stones  and  metals, 
lie  couched  and  covered  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth;  the  very- 
condition  of  their  being  giving  them  their  burial  too.  So  that 
violence  must  be  done  to  nature,  before  she  will  produce  and 
bring  them  forth. 

And  then,  as  for  what  concerns  the  mind  of  man,  God  has  in 


CHRISTIANITY  MYSTERIOUS. 


501 


his  wise  providence  cast  things  so,  as  to  make  the  business  of 
men  in  this  world  improvement ;  that  so  the  very  work  of  their 
condition  may  still  remind  them  of  the  imperfection  of  it.  For, 
surely,  he  who  is  still  pressing  forward  has  not  yet  obtained  the 
prize.  Nor  has  he  who  is  only  growing  in  knowledge,  yet 
arrived  to  the  full  stature  of  it.  Growth  is  progress;  and  all 
progress  designs  and  tends  to  the  acquisition  of  something  which 
the  growing  person  is  not  yet  possessed  of. 

(4.)  The  fourth  and  last  reason  which  I  shall  allege  of  the 
mysterious  dispensation  of  the  gospel  here,  is,  that  the  full,  entire 
knowledge  of  it  may  be  one  principal  part  of  our  felicity  and 
blessedness  hereafter.  All  those  heights  and  depths  which  we 
now  stand  so  much  amazed  at,  and  which  so  confound  and  baffle 
the  subtlest  and  most  piercing  apprehension,  shall  then  be  made 
clear,  open,  and  familiar  to  us.  God  shall  then  display  the 
hidden  glories  of  his  nature,  and  withal  fortify  the  eye  of  the 
soul  so  that  it  shall  be  able  to  behold  and  take  them  in,  so  far  as 
the  capacities  of  a  human  intellect  will  enable  it  to  do.  We 
shall  then  see  the  mysteries  of  the  Trinity,  and  of  the  incarna- 
tion of  Christ,  and  of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  unriddled 
and  made  plain  to  us ;  all  the  knots  of  God's  decrees  and  pro- 
vidence untied  and  made  fit  for  our  understanding,  as  well  as  our 
admiration.  We  shall  then  be  transported  with  a  nobler  kind  of 
wonder,  not  the  effect  of  ignorance,  but  the  product  of  a  clearer 
and  more  advanced  knowledge.  We  shall  admire  and  adore  the 
works  and  attributes  of  the  great  God,  because  we  shall  see  the 
glorious  excellency  of  the  one,  and  the  admirable  contrivances  of 
the  other,  made  evident  to  our  very  reason ;  so  as  to  inform  and 
satisfy  that  which  before  they  could  only  astonish  and  amaze. 

The  happiness  of  heaven  shall  be  a  happiness  of  vision  and  of 
knowledge ;  and  we  shall  there  pass  from  the  darkness  of  our 
native  ignorance,  from  the  dusk  and  twilight  of  our  former  no- 
tions, into  the  broad  light  of  an  everlasting  day :  a  day  which 
shall  leave  nothing  undiscovered  to  us  which  can  be  fit  for  us  to 
know.  And  therefore  the  apostle,  comparing  our  present  with 
our  future  condition  in  respect  of  those  different  measures  of 
knowledge  allotted  to  each  of  them,  1  Cor.  xiii.  12,  tells  us,  that 
"here  we  see  but  darkly  and  in  a  glass;"  and  a  glass,  we  know, 
often  gives  a  false,  but  always  a  faint  representation  of  the  ob- 
ject: but  then,"  says  he,  "  shall  we  see  God  face  to  face."  And 
again,  "Here  we  know  but  in  part,  but  there  we  shall  know  as 
we  are  known ;  and  that  which  is  perfect  being  come,  then  that 
which  is  in  part  shall  be  done  away."  Reason  being  then  un- 
clogged  from  the  body,  shall  have  its  full  flight,  and  a  free,  un- 
controlled passage  into  all  things  intelligible.  We  shall  then 
surmount  these  beggarly  rudiments  and  mean  helps  of  knowledge, 
which  now  by  many  little  steps  gradually  raise  us  to  some  short 
speculation  of  the  nature  of  things.    Our  knowledge  shall  be 


502 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXX. 


then  intuitive  and  above  discourse;  not  proceeding  by  a  long 
circuit  of  antecedents  and  consequents,  as  now  in  this  vale  of 
imperfection  it  is  forced  to  do ;  but  it  shall  then  fully  inform  the 
whole  mind,  and  take  in  the  whole  object,  by  one  single  and  sub- 
stantial act. 

For  as  in  that  condition  we  shall  enjoy  the  happiness,  so  we 
shall  also  imitate  the  perfection  of  angels,  who  outshine  the  rest 
of  the  creation  in  nothing  more  than  in  a  transcendent  ability  of 
knowing  and  judging,  which  is  the  very  glory  and  crowning  ex- 
cellency of  a  created  nature.  Faith  itself  shall  be  then  accounted 
too  mean  a  thing  to  accompany  us  in  that  estate ;  for  being  only 
conversant  about  things  not  seen,  it  can  have  no  admittance  into 
that  place,  the  peculiar  privilege  of  which  shall  be  to  convey  to 
us  the  knowledge  of  those  things  by  sight,  which  before  we  took 
wholly  upon  trust.  And  thus  I  have  given  you  some  account, 
first  of  the  mysteriousness  of  the  gospel,  and  then  of  the  reasons 
of  it;  and  that  both  from  the  nature  of  the  things  themselves 
which  are  treated  of  in  it,  as  also  from  those  great  ends  and  pur- 
poses which  God  in  his  infinite  wisdom  has  designed  it  to. 

From  all  which  discourse  several  very  weighty  inferences  might 
be  drawn,  but  I  shall  collect  and  draw  from  thence  only  these 
three:  as, 

First,  The  high  reasonableness  of  men's  relying  upon-  the 
judgment  of  the  whole  church  in  general,  and  of  their  respective 
teachers  and  spiritual  guides  in  particular,  rather  than  upon  their 
own  private  judgments,  in  such  important  and  mysterious  points 
of  religion,  as  we  have  been  hitherto  discoursing  of ;  I  say,  upon 
the  judgment  of  those  who  have  made  it  their  constant  business, 
as  well  as  their  avowed  profession  to  acquaint  themselves  with 
these  mysteries  (so  far  as  human  reason  can  attain  to  them),  and 
that  in  order  to  the  instruction  and  information  of  others. 

Certain  it  is,  that  there  is  no  other  profession  in  the  world, 
besides  this  of  divinity,  wherein  men  do  not  own  something  of  a 
mystery,  and  accordingly  reckon  it  highly  rational  and  absolutely 
necessary  in  many  cases,  to  resign  and  submit  their  own  judg- 
ments to  the  judgments  of  such  as  profess  a  skill  in  any  art  or 
science  whatsoever.  For  whose  judgment  ought  in  all  reason  to 
be  followed  about  any  thing — his,  who  has  made  it  his  whole  work 
and  calling  to  understand  that  thing;  or  his,  who  has  bestowed 
his  whole  time,  parts,  and  labour  upon  something  else,  which  is 
wholly  foreign  to  it,  and  has  no  cognation  at  all  with  it  ? 

But  there  is  not  only  reason  to  persuade,  but  also  authority  to 
oblige  men  in  the  present  case.  For  see  in  what  notable  words 
the  prophet  asserts  this  privilege  to  the  priesthood  under  the 
Mosaic  economy,  Mai.  ii.  7,  "  The  priest's  lips,"  says  he,  "  should 
preserve  knowledge,  and  the  people  should  seek  the  law  at  his 
mouth ;"  adding  this  as  a  reason  of  the  same,  "  for  he  is  the  mes- 
senger of  the  Lord  of  hosts." 


CHRISTIANITY  MYSTERIOUS. 


503 


For  which  words,  no  doubt,  this  prophet  would  have  passed 
for  a  man  of  heat,  or  high-churchman,  now-a-days :  for  in  good 
earnest,  they  run  very  high,  and  look  very  severely  upon  our  so 
much  applauded  or  rather  doated-upon  liberty  of  conscience,  and 
are  so  far  from  casting  the  least  eye  of  favour  upon  it,  that  they 
are  a  more  direct  and  mortal  stab  to  it,- than  all  the  pleas,  argu- 
ments, and  apologies  I  could  ever  yet  read  or  hear  of,  have  been 
a  defence  of  it. 

Nor  does  the  same  privilege  sink  one  jot  lower  under  the 
Christian  constitution  ;  for,  as  we  have  already  shown  that  the 
gospel  is  full  of  mysteries,  so  1  Cor.  iv.  1,  the  ministers  of  the 
gospel  are  declared  the  "stewards  of  these  mysteries;"  and  what- 
soever any  one  dispenses  as  a  steward,  he  dispenses  with  the 
authority  and  in  the  strength  of  an  office  and  commission ;  and 
I  believe  it  will  be  hard  to  prove,  that  a  minister  of  the  gospel 
can  be  obliged  to  dispense  or  declare  any  thing  to  the  people, 
which  the  people  are  not  upon  his  declaration  of  it  equally  bound 
to  believe  and  assent  to. 

An  implicit  faith  indeed  in  our  spiritual  guides  (such  as  the 
church  of  Rome  holds)  I  own  to  be  a  great  absurdity,  but  a  due 
deference  and  submission  to  the  judgment  of  the  said  guides  in  the 
discharge  of  their  ministry,  I  affirm  to  be  as  great  a  duty.  And  I 
state  the  measures  of  this  submission,  in  a  belief  of,  and  an  obedience 
to,  all  that  a  man's  spiritual  guide  shall  in  that  capacity  declare  and 
enjoin,  provided  that  a  man  does  not  certainly  know,  or  at  least 
upon  very  great  and  just  grounds  doubt,  any  thing  to  the  contrary; 
which  two  conditions,  I  allow,  ought  always  to  be  supposed  in  this 
case :  and  then  if  no  objection  from  either  of  these  shall  interpose, 
I  affirm  that  every  man  stands  obliged  by  the  duty  he  owes  to  his 
spiritual  pastor,  to  believe  and  obey  whatsoever  his  said  pastor 
shall  by  virtue  of  his  pastoral  office  deliver  to  him.  In  a  word,  if 
men  would  but  seriously  and  impartially  consider  these  three  things : 
First,  that  the  gospel  or  Christian  religion  is,  for  the  most  part 
of  it,  made  up  of  mysteries :  secondly,  that  God  has  appointed  a 
certain  order  of  men  to  declare  and  dispense  these  mysteries  ;  and 
thirdly  and  lastly,  that  it  was  his  wisdom  thus  to  order  both  these  ; 
certainly  men  would  both  treat  the  gospel  itself  more  like  a 
mystery,  and  the  ministers  of  the  gospel  more  like  the  dispensers 
of  so  high  and  sacred  a  mystery,  than  the  guise  and  fashion  of  our 
present  blessed  time  disposes  them  to  do  ;  that  is,  in  other  words, 
men  would  be  less  confident  of  their  own  understandings,  and  more 
apt  to  pay  reverence  and  submission  to  the  understandings  of  those 
who  are  both  more  conversant  in  these  matters  than  they  can 
pretend  to  be,  and  whom  the  same  wisdom  of  God  has  thought 
fit  to  appoint  over  them  as  their  guides.  For  the  contrary  prac- 
tice can  proceed  from  nothing  but  a  high  self-opinion,  and  a  man's 
being  wise  in  his  own  conceit,  which  is  a  sure  way  to  be  so  in 
nobody's  else. 


504 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXX. 


In  fine,  every  one  is  apt  to  think  himself  able  to  be  his  own 
divine,  his  own  priest,  and  his  own  teacher,  and  he  should  do 
well  to  be  his  own  physician  and  his  own  lawyer  too.  And  then, 
as  upon  such  a  course  he  finds  himself  speed  in  the  matters  of 
this  world,  let  him  upon  the  same  reckon  of  his  success  in  the 
other. 

Secondly,  We  learn  also  from  the  foregoing  particulars  the 
gross  unreasonableness  and  the  manifest  sophistry  of  men's  making 
whatsoever  they  find  by  themselves  not  intelligible  (that  is  to  say, 
by  human  reason  not  comprehensible),  the  measure  whereby  they 
would  conclude  the  same  also  to  be  impossible.  This,  I  say,  is  a 
mere  fallacy,  and  a  wretched  inconsequence:  and  yet  nothing 
occurs  more  commonly,  and  that  as  a  principle  taken  for  granted, 
in  the  late  writings  of  some  heterodox,  pert,  unwary  men,  and 
particularly  it  is  the  main  hinge  upon  which  all  the  Socinian 
arguments  against  the  mysteries  of  our  religion  turn  and  depend ; 
but  withal  so  extremely  remote  is  it  from  all  truth,  that  there 
is  not  the  least  show  or  shadow  of  reason  assignable  for  it,  but 
upon  this  one  supposition,  namely,  that  the  reason  or  mind  of 
man  is  capable  of  comprehending  or  thoroughly  understanding 
whatsoever  it  is  possible  for  an  infinite  divine  power  to  do.  This, 
I  say,  must  be  supposed,  for  no  other  foundation  can  support  the 
truth  of  this  proposition,  to  wit,  that  whatsoever  is  humanly  not 
intelligible,  is  and  ought  to  be  reckoned  upon  the  same  account 
also  impossible.  But  then  every  one  must  needs  see  and  explode 
the  horrible  falseness  of  the  forementioned  supposition,  upon 
which  alone  this  assertion  is  built ;  and  consequently  this  assertion 
itself  must  needs  be  altogether  as  false. 

For  who  can  comprehend  or  thoroughly  understand  how  the 
soul  is  united  to,  and  how  it  acts  by  and  upon  the  body?  Who 
can  comprehend  or  give  a  full  account  how  sensation  is  per- 
formed ?  Or  who  can  lay  open  to  us  the  whole  mechanism  of 
motion  in  all  the  springs  and  wheels  of  it.  Nay,  who  can  resolve 
and  clear  off  all  the  difficulties  about  the  composition  of  a  con- 
tinued quality,  as  whether  it  is  compounded  of  parts  divisable  or 
indivisable?  both  of  which  are  attended  with  insuperable  objec- 
tions: and  yet  all  these  things  are  not  only  possible,  but  also 
actually  existent  in  nature.  From  all  which  therefore,  and  from 
a  thousand  more  such  instances,  which  might  easily  be  produced, 
I  conclude,  that  for  any  one  to  deny  or  reject  the  mysteries  of 
our  religion  as  impossible,  because  of  the  incomprehensibleness  of 
them,  is  upon  all  true  principles,  both  of  divinity  and  philosophy, 
utterly  inconsequent  and  irrational. 

Thirdly,  In  the  third  and  last  place,  we  learn  also  from  what 
has  been  discoursed,  the  great  vanity  and  extravagant  presump- 
tion of  such  as  pretend  to  clear  up  all  mysteries,  and  determine 
all  controversies  in  religion.  The  attempts  of  which  sort  of  men 
I  can  liken  to  nothing  so  properly  as  to  those  pretences  to  infalli- 


CHRISTIANITY  MYSTERIOUS. 


505 


ole  cures,  which  we  daily  see  posted  up  in  ever}'  corner  of  the 
streets ;  and  I  think  it  is  great  pity,  but  that  both  these  sort  of 
pretences  were  posted  up  together.  For  I  know  no  universal, 
infallible  remedy,  which  certainly  cures,  or  rather  carries  off  all 
diseases,  and  puts  an  end  to  all  disputes,  but  death :  which  yet, 
for  all  that,  is  a  remedy  not  much  in  request.  Quacks  and 
mountebanks,  are,  doubtless,  a  very  dangerous  sort  of  men  in 
physic,  but  much  more  so  in  divinity :  they  are  both  of  them 
always  very  large  in  pretence  and  promise,  but  short  in  per- 
formance, and  generally  fatal  in  their  practice.  For  there  are 
several  depths  and  difficulties,  as  I  noted  before,  both  in  philo- 
sophy and  divinity,  which  men  of  parts  and  solid  learning,  after 
all  their  study,  find  they  cannot  come  to  the  bottom  of,  but  are 
forced  to  give  them  over  as  things  unresolvable,  and  will  by  no 
means  be  brought  to  pronounce  dogmatically  on  either  side  of  the 
question. 

Amongst  which  said  difficulties  perhaps  there  is  hardly  a  greater 
and  more  undecidable  problem  in  natural  theology,  and  which 
has  not  only  exercised  but  even  crucified  the  greatest  wits  of  all 
ages,  than  the  reconciling  of  the  immutable  certainty  of  God's 
foreknowledge  with  the  freedom  and  contingency  of  all  human 
acts,  both  good  and  evil,  so  foreknown  by  him.  Both  parts  of 
which  problem  are  certainly  true,  but  how  to  explain  and  make 
out  the  accord  between  them  without  overthrowing  one  of  them, 
has  hitherto  exceeded  the  force  of  man's  reason.  And  therefore 
Socinus  very  roundly,  or  rather  indeed  very  profanely,  denies  any 
such  prescience  of  future  contingents  to  be  in  God  at  all.  But  as 
profane  as  he  was  in  thus  cutting  asunder  this  knot,  others  have 
been  as  ridiculous  in  pretending  to  unite  it.  For  do  not  some  in 
their  discourses  about  the  divine  attributes  and  decrees,  promise 
the  world  such  a  clear  account,  such  an  open  explicit  scheme  of 
those  great  things,  as  should  make  them  plain  and  evident  even 
to  the  meanest  capacities  ?  And  the  truth  is,  if  to  any  capacities 
at  all,  it  must  be  to  the  meanest;  for  to  those  of  a  higher  pitch 
and  a  larger  compass,  these  things  neither  are,  nor  will,  nor  ever 
can  be  made  evident.  And  if  such  persons  could  but  obtain  of 
Heaven  a  continuance  of  life,  till  they  made  good  what  they  so 
confidently  undertake,  they  would  be  in  a  sure  way  to  outlive 
not  only  Methuselah,  but  even  the  world  itself.  But  then  in 
come  some  other  undertakers,  and  promise  us  the  same  or  greater 
wonders  in  Christian  theology,  offering  by  some  new  whimsical 
explications  of  their  own  to  make  the  deepest  mysteries  of  our 
Christian  faith  as  plain,  easy,  and  intelligible,  forsooth,  as  that 
two  and  two  make  four ;  that  is,  in  other  words,  they  will  repre- 
sent and  render  them  such  mysteries  as  shall  have  nothing  at  all 
mystical  in  them. 

And  now  is  not  this,  think  we,  a  most  profound  invention,  and 
much  like  the  discovery  of  some  New-found-land,  some  O  Brazil 

Vol.  I. — 64  2  U 


506 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXX. 


in  divinity?  With  so  much  absurd  confidence  do  some  discourse, 
or  rather  romance  upon  the  most  mysterious  points  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith ;  that  any  man  of  sense  and  sobriety  would  be  apt  to 
think  such  persons  not  only  beside  their  subject,  but  beside  them- 
selves too.  And  the  like  censure  we  may  justly  pass  upon  all 
other  such  idle  pretenders;  the  true  character  of  which  sort  of 
men  is,  that  he  who  thinks  and  says  he  can  understand  all 
mysteries,  and  resolve  all  controversies,  undeniably  shows  that 
he  really  understands  none. 

In  the  meantime,  we  may  here  observe  the  true  way  by  which 
these  great  and  adorable  mysteries  of  our  religion  come  first  to  be 
ridiculed,  and  blasphemed,  and  at  length  totally  laid  aside  by 
some ;  and  that  is,  by  their  being  first  innovated  upon  and  new 
modelled  by  the  bold,  senseless,  and  absurd  explications  of  others. 
For,  first  of  all,  such  innovators  break  down  those  sacred  mounds 
which  antiquity  had  placed  about  these  articles,  and  then  heretics 
and  blasphemers  rush  in  upon  them,  trample  them  under  foot,  and 
quite  throw  them  out  of  our  creed.  This  course  we  have  seen 
taken  amongst  us,  that  the  church  (God  bless  it,  and  those  who 
are  over  it)  has  been  hitherto  profoundly  silent  at  it ;  but  how  long 
God,  whose  honour  is  most  concerned,  will  be  so  too,  none  can 
tell.  For  if  some  novelists  may  put  what  sense  they  please  upon 
the  writings  of  Moses,  and  others  do  the  like  with  the  articles  of 
the  Christian  church  also,  and  the  greatest  encouragement  attend 
both,  I  cannot  see  (unless  some  extraordinary  providence  prevent 
it)  but  that  both  these  religions  are  in  a  direct  way  to  be  run  down 
amongst  us,  and  that  in  a  very  short  time  too. 

Let  every  sober,  humble,  and  discreet  Christian  therefore  be 
advised  to  dread  all  tampering  with  the  mysteries  of  our  faith, 
either  by  any  new  and  unwarrantable  explications  of  them,  or 
descants  upon  them.  The  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  who  I 
am  sure  had  as  clear  a  knowledge  of  the  whole  mystery  of  the 
gospel  as  any  in  his  time,  and  a  greater  plenty  of  revelations 
than  any  one  could  pretend  to  since  him,  treated  those  matters 
with  much  another  kind  of  reverence,  crying  out  with  horror  and 
amazement,  "  O  the  depth  and  unsearchableness  of  the  things  of 
God  !"  in  Rom.  xi.  33.  And  again,  "  Who  is  sufficient  for  these 
things!"  in  2  Cor.  ii.  16.  This  was  his  judgment,  these  were 
his  thoughts  of  these  dreadful  and  mysterious  depths ;  and  the 
same,  no  doubt,  will  be  the  thoughts  and  judgment  of  all  others 
concerning  them,  who  have  any  thing  of  depth  themselves.  For 
as  the  same  apostle  again  has  it  in  that  most  noted  place  in 
1  Tim.  iii.  16,  "  Without  controversy  great  is  the  mystery  of 
godliness:  God  manifested  in  the  flesh,  justified  in  the  Spirit,  seen 
of  angels,  believed  on  in  the  world,  and  received  up  into  glory." 

To  which  God  infinitely  wise,  holy,  and  great,  be  rendered  and 
ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion, 
both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


507 


SERMON  XXXI. 

THE    LINEAL    DESCENT    OF    JESUS    OF    NAZARETH    FROM    DAVID  BY 
HIS  BLESSED  MOTHER  THE  VIRGIN  MARY. 

Rev.  xxii.  16,  latter  part. 

J  am  the  root  and  the  offspring  of  David,  and  the  bright  and 
morning  star. 

The  words  here  pitched  upon  by  me  are  the  words  of  Christ 
now  glorified  in  heaven,  and  seem,  as  it  were,  by  the  union  of  a 
double  festival,  to  represent  to  us  both  the  nativity  and  epiphany, 
while  they  lead  us  to  the  birth  of  Christ  by  the  direction  of  a 
star:  though  with  this  difference,  I  confess,  that  both  the  means 
directing,  and  the  term  directed  to,  do  in  this  place  coincide ;  and 
Christ,  the  person  speaking  as  well  as  spoken  of,  is  here  the  only 
star  to  direct  us  to  himself.  The  nativity  of  Christ  is  certainly 
a  compendium  of  the  whole  gospel,  in  that  it  thus  both  begins 
and  ends  it,  reaching  from  the  first  chapter  of  St.  Matthew,  to 
this  last  of  the  Revelation ;  which  latter,  though  it  be  confessedly 
a  book  of  mysteries  and  a  system  of  occult  divinity,  yet  surely 
it  can  contain  nothing  more  mysterious  and  stupendous  than  the 
mystery  here  wrapped  up  in  the  text ;  where  we  have  Christ  de- 
claring himself  both  the  root  and  the  offspring  of  David.  For 
that  any  one  should  be  both  father  and  son  to  the  same  person,  pro- 
duce himself,  be  cause  and  effect  too,  and  so  the  copy  give  being 
to  its  original,  seems  at  first  sight  so  very  strange  and  unaccount- 
able, that  were  it  not  to  be  adored  as  a  mystery,  it  would  be  ex- 
ploded as  a  contradiction.  But  since  the  gospel  has  lifted  us 
above  our  reason,  and  taught  us  one  of  the  great  arcana  of  hea- 
ven, by  assuring  us  that  divinity  and  humanity  may  cohabit  in 
one  subsistence,  that  two  natures  may  concur  in  the  same  person, 
and  heaven  and  earth  mingle  without  confusion ;  we  being  thus 
taught  and  persuaded,  shall  here  endeavour  to  exhibit  the  whole 
economy  of  Christ's  glorious  person,  and  to  show  what  a  miracle 
he  was,  as  well  as  what  miracles  he  did,  by  considering  him 
under  the  three  several  respects. 

I.  As  the  root ; 

II.  As  the  offspring  of  David.  And 

III.  As  he  is  here  termed,  "the  bright  and  morning  star." 

I.  And  for  the  first  of  these:  Christ  was  the  root  of  David; 
but  how  ?  Certainly  in  respect  of  something  in  him  which  had  a 
being  before  David.    But  his  humanity  had  not  so,  being  of 


508 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXI. 


a  much  later  date,  and  therefore  as  a  mere  man  he  could  not  be 
the  root  of  David ;  whereupon  it  follows  that  he  must  have  been 
so  in  respect  of  some  other  nature :  but  what  that  nature  was 
will  be  the  question.  The  Arians  who  denied  his  divinity,  but 
granted  his  pre-existence  to  his  humanity  (which  the  Socinians 
absolutely  deny),  held  him  to  be  the  first  born  of  the  creation; 
the  first  and  most  glorious  creature  which  God  made,  a  spiritual 
substance  produced  by  him  long  before  the  foundation  of  the 
world,  and  afterwards  in  the  fulness  of  time  sent  into  a  body, 
and  so  made  incarnate.  This  is  what  they  hold ;  whereby  it  ap- 
pears how  much  they  differ  from  the  school  of  Socinus,  though 
some  with  great  impertinence  confound  them.  Arius  taught  that 
Christ  had  a  spiritual  subsistence  before  the  world  began ;  Soci- 
nus held  that  he  was  a  mere  man,  and  had  no  subsistence  or 
being  at  all,  till  such  time  as  he  was  conceived  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  in  the  womb  of  the  Virgin  Mary.  I  shall  not  much  con- 
cern myself  about  these  two  opinions,  as  they  stand  in  opposi- 
tion to  one  another ;  but  only  remark  this  of  them,  that  Socinus 
asserts  a  thing  considered  barely  in  itself  more  agreeable  to  rea- 
son, which  can  much  better  conceive  of  Christ  as  a  man  naturally 
consisting  of  soul  and  body,  than  as  such  a  heterogeneous  com- 
position of  a  body  and  I  know  not  what  strange  spiritual  sub- 
stance existing  before  the  creation,  as  the  Arians  represent  him; 
but  then  on  the  other  side,  the  opinion  of  Arius  is,  of  the  two, 
much  more  difficult  to  be  confuted  by  scripture:  for  as  to  Soci- 
nus, the  chief  arguments  brought  from  thence  against  him  are 
not  such  as  are  taken  from  the  name  or  actions  of  God,  attribu- 
ted to  Christ;  which  he  thinks  he  easily  answers  by  asserting 
that  God  is  a  name  not  of  nature,  but  of  power  and  dominion: 
and  that  Christ  is  called  God  because  of  the  power  and  govern- 
ment of  all  things  put  into  his  hands ;  as  earthly  kings  also,  in 
their  proportion,  have  in  scripture  the  same  title  upon  the  same 
account.  But  the  arguments  which  bear  hardest  upon  Socinus, 
are  such  as  are  taken  from  those  scriptures,  which  beyond  all 
possibility  of  rational  contradiction  declare  the  pre-existence  and 
precedent  being  of  Christ  to  his  conception,  such  as  John  viii. 
58,  Before  "  Abraham  was,  I  am ;"  and  in  John  xvii.  5,  "  Glorify 
me,  0  Father,  with  the  glory  which  I  had  with  thee  before 
the  world  was;"  which  all  the  Socinians  in  the  world  could 
never  yet  give  any  clear,  proper,  and  natural  exposition  of; 
but  unnaturally  and  illogically  pervert  and  distort  them  in  defi- 
ance of  sense  and  reason,  and  all  the  received  ways  of  interpre- 
tation. But  now  as  for  Arius,  the  allegation  of  these  and  the 
like  scriptures  prejudice  not  his  hypothesis  at  all:  who  grants 
Christ  to  have  been  a  glorious  spiritual  substance  of  an  existence 
not  only  before  Abraham,  but  also  before  Adam,  and  the 
angels  themselves,  and  the  whole  host  of  the  creation.  But 
what !  was  Christ  then  the  root  of  David  only  in  respect  of  this 


THE  LINEAL  DESCENT  OF  JESUS  OF  NAZARETH.  509 

spiritual,  pre-existing,  created  substance,  first  found  out  and  set 
up  by  Arius?    No,  certainly;   for  the  scripture,  and  (the  best 
comment  upon  the  scripture)  a  general  council,  and  that  also  the 
first  and  most  famous,  even  the  council  of  Nice,  have  condemned 
this.     And  all  those  scriptures  which  make  Christ  either  one 
with,  or  equal  to  the  Father,  clearly  confute  and  overthrow  so 
absurd  as  well  as  blasphemous  an  assertion.    Let  this  therefore 
be  fixed  upon,  that  Christ  was  the  root,  or  original  of  David,  as 
he  was  of  all  mankind  besides ;  namely,  in  respect  of  his  divinity ; 
of  that  infinite,  eternal  power,  which  displayed  itself  in  the 
works  of  the  creation:  for  "by  him  all  things  were  made,"  as 
the  evangelist  tells  us,  John  i.  3.    But  how  ready  natural  reason 
will  be  to  rise  up  against  this  assertion,  I  am  not  ignorant ;  and 
how  [that  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a  man  like  ourselves,  should  be 
accounted  by  nature  God,  the  creator  of  the  world,  omniscient, 
omnipotent,  and  eternal]  is  looked  upon  by  many  as  a  proposi- 
tion not  only  false,  but  foolish,  and  fitter  to  be  laughed  than 
disputed  out  of  the  world,  this  also  is  no  surprise  to  us.  But 
then  on  the  other  side,  that  this  is  a  thing  not  to  be  founded 
upon,  or  to  take  its  rise  from  the  bare  discourses  of  reason,  he 
must  be  very  much  a  stranger  to  reason  himself,  who  shall  ven- 
ture to  deny ;  for  if  it  may  be  proved  by  reason  (as  I  doubt  not 
but  it  may)  that  the  scripture  is  the  word  of  God,  addressed  to 
men ;  and  consequently  ought  to  be  understood  and  interpreted 
according  to  the  familiar  natural  way  of  construction  proper  to 
human  writings;  then  I  affirm  that  to  deny  Christ  to  be  natu- 
rally God,  is  irrational;   when   his  being  so  is  so  frequently 
asserted  throughout  the  whole  scripture,  and  that  in  as  clear 
terms  as  it  is  possible  for  one  man  to  express  his  mind  by  to 
another,  if  it  were  his  purpose  to  declare  this  very  thing  to  him. 

And  therefore  I  have  often  wondered  at  the  preposterous 
tenets  of  Socinus,  and  that  not  so  much  for  his  denying  the  na- 
tural deity  of  our  Saviour,  as  that  he  should  do  it  after  he  had 
written  a  book  for  the  authority  of  the  scripture.  For  upon  the 
same  reasons  that  he  and  his  sect  deny  the  deity  of  Christ, 
I  should  rather  deny  the  scripture  to  be  of  divine  authority. 
They  say,  for  Christ  to  be  God  is  a  thing  absurd  and  impossible  ; 
from  which  I  should  argue,  that  that  writing  or  doctrine  which 
affirms  a  thing  absurd  and  impossible,  cannot  be  true,  and  much 
less  the  word  of  God.  And  that  the  gospel  affirms  so  much  of 
Christ  we  may  appeal  to  the  judgment  of  any  impartial  heathen, 
who  understands  the  language  in  which  it  is  written.  But  he 
who  first  denies  the  deity  of  Christ  as  absurd  and  impossible,  and 
thereupon  rejects  the  divine  authority  of  the  scripture  for 
affirming,  it,  may  be  presumed  upon  the  supposal  of  the  former 
to  do  the  latter  very  rationally.  So  that  he  who  would  take  the 
most  proper  and  direct  way  to  convince  such  a  one  of  his  heresy 
(if  there  be  any  convincing  of  one  who  first  takes  up  his  opinion, 

2u2 


510 


DR.  SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXI. 


and  then  seeks  for  reasons  for  it)  must  not,  I  conceive,  endeavour 
in  the  first  place  to  convince  him  out  of  scripture  [that  Jesus 
Christ  is  God],  but  turn  the  whole  force  and  stress  of  his  dispu- 
tation to  the  proof  of  this  [that  the  scripture  is  the  word  of  God 
to  mankind,  and  upon  that  account  ought  to  be  interpreted  as  the 
writings  of  men  use  and  ought  to  be],  and  if  so,  he  who  will 
make  sense  of  them,  must  grant  the  divinity  of  Christ  to  be 
clearly  asserted  in  them,  and  irrefragably  inferred  from  them. 
In  short,  if  the  adversaries  of  Christ's  divinity  can  prove  Christ 
not  to  be  God,  they  must  by  consequence  prove  that  the  scrip- 
tures, naturally  and  grammatically  interpreted,  are  not  the  word 
of  God.  But  on  the  contrary,  the  church  being  assured  that  the 
scriptures  so  interpreted  are  the  word  of  God,  is  consequently 
assured  also,  that  Christ  is  and  must  be  God.  Nevertheless,  if 
according  to  the  unreasonable  demands  of  the  men  of  this  sect, 
this  and  all  other  mysteries  of  our  religion  should  be  put  to 
answer  for  themselves  at  the  bar  of  human  reason,  I  would  fain 
know,  wherein  consists  the  paradox  pf  asserting  Christ  to  be 
God?  for  no  man  says  that  his  human  nature  is  his  divine,  or 
that  he  is  God  as  he  is  man.  But  we  assert  that  he  who  is  God 
is  also  man,  by  having  two  natures  united  into  one  and  the  same 
substance.  And  if  the  soul,  which  is  an  immaterial  substance,  is 
united  to  the  body,  which  is  a  material ;  though  the  case  is  not 
altogether  the  same,  yet  it  is  so  very  near,  that  we  may  well  ask 
what  repugnancy  there  is,  but  that  the  divine  nature  may  as  well 
be  united  to  the  human  ?  I  believe,  if  we  reduce  things  to  our 
way  of  conception,  we  shall  find  it  altogether  as  hard  to  conceive 
the  conjunction  of  the  two  former,  as  of  the  two  latter:  and 
this,  notwithstanding  that  other  difference  also  of  finite  and  infi- 
nite between  them :  for  why  a  finite  and  an  infinite  being  may  not 
be  united  to  one  another  by  an  intimate  and  inseparable  relation, 
and  an  assumption  of  the  finite,  into  the  personal  subsistence  of 
the  infinite,  I  believe  it  will  be  hard  for  any  one  to  give  a  solid  and 
demonstrative  reason :  for  scoffs  and  raillery,  the  usual  arguments 
brought  against  it,  I  am  sure  are  not  so.  But  I  forget  myself ; 
for  the  persons  here  disputed  against  believe  not  the  soul  to  be 
either  immaterial  or  naturally  immortal  ;*  but  are  much  the  same 
with,  the  Sadducees,  and  upon  that  account  fitter  to  be  crushed 
by  the  civil  magistrate,  as  destructive  to  government  and  society, 
than  to  be  confuted  as  merely  heretics  in  religion. 

I  conclude  therefore  against  the  scoffs  of  the  heathen,  the  dis- 
putations of  the  Jews,  the  impiety  of  Arius,  and  the  bold,  blas- 

*  Tantum  id  mihi  videtur  statui  posse,  post  banc  vitam,  hominis  anirnam  sivo 
animum  non  ita  per  se  subsistere,  ut  ulla  praemia  poenasve  sentiat,  vel  etiam  ilia  sen- 
tiendi  sit  capax. 

And  again.  In  ipso  primo  homine  totius  immortalitatis  rationem  uni  gratiae  Dei  tri- 
buno;  nec  in  ipsa  creatione  quicquam  immortalis  vita;  in  homine  agnosco.  Socin.  Ep.  5, 
ad  Joh.  Volkelium.  See  more  of  the  like  nature  cited  by  the  learned  Dr.  Ashwell,  in  hia 
Dissertation  De  Socino  et  Socinianismo,  p.  187,  188,  189,  &c. 


THE  LINEAL  DESCENT  OF  JESUS  OF  NAZARETH.  511 


phemous  assertions  of  Socinus,  that  the  man  Christ  Jesus,  born 
at  Bethlehem,  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  is  God,  God  by  nature,  the 
maker  of  all  things,  the  fountain  of  being,  the  Ancient  of  Days, 
the  first  and  the  last,  of  whose  being  there  was  no  beginning, 
and  of  whose  kingdom  there  shall  be  no  end.  And  in  this  one 
proposition  the  very  life  and  heart  of  Christianity  does  consist. 
For  as,  that  there  is  a  God,  is  the  grand  foundation  of  religion 
in  general:  so,  that  Jesus  Christ  is  God,  is  the  foundation  of  the 
Christian  religion.  And,  I  believe  it  will  one  day  be  found,  that 
he  who  will  not  acknowledge  Christ  for  his  creator,  shall  never 
have  him  for  his  redeemer. 

Having  thus  shown  how  Christ  was  the  root  and  original  of 
David,  pass  we  now  to  the  next  thing  proposed,  which  is  to 
show 

II.  That  he  was  his  offspring  too,  and  so,  having  asserted  his 
divinity,  to  clear  also  his  humanity.  That  the  Christian  religion 
be  true,  is  the  eternal  concernment  of  all  those  who  believe  it, 
and  look  to  be  saved  by  it :  and  that  it  be  so,  depends  upon  Jesus 
Christ's  being  the  true  promised  Messias  (the  grand  and  chief 
thing  asserted  by  him  in  his  gospel);  and  lastly,  Christ's  being 
the  true  Messias  depends  upon  his  being  the  son  of  David,  and 
king  of  the  Jews.  So  that  unless  this  be  evinced,  the  whole 
foundation  of  Christianity  must  totter  and  fall,  as  being  a  cheat 
and  an  imposture  upon  the  world.  And  therefore  let  us  under- 
take to  clear  this  great,  important  truth,  and  to  demonstrate  that 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  the  true  seed  of  David,  and  rightful  king 
of  the  Jews. 

His  pedigree  is  drawn  down  by  two  of  the  evangelists,  by  St. 
Matthew  in  his  first  chapter,  and  by  St.  Luke  in  his  third,  from 
whence  our  adversaries  oppose  us  with  these  two  great  difficulties. 

1.  That  these  two  evangelists  disagree  in  deducing  of  his 
pedigree. 

2.  That  supposing  they  were  proved  to  agree,  both  of  their 
pedigrees  terminate  in  Joseph,  and  therefore  belong  not  to  Jesus, 
who  was  not  indeed  the  son  of  Joseph,  but  of  Man-. 

In  answer  to  which  we  are  to  observe,  that  concerning  this 
whole  matter  there  are  two  opinions. 

First,  That  both  in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke  only  the  pedi- 
gree of  Joseph  is  recounted,  in  the  first  his  natural,  in  the  other 
his  le^al.  For  it  being:  a  known  custom  among  the  Jews,  that  a 
man  dying  without  issue,  his  brother  should  marry  his  widow, 
and  raise  up  seed  to  him,  Eli  hereupon  dying  without  any  child, 
Jacob  took  his  wife  and  of  her  begat  Joseph ;  who  by  this  means 
was  naturally  the  son  of  Jacob,  as  St.  Matthew  deduces  it;  and 
legally  or  reputedly  the  son  of  Eli,  as  St.  Luke.  And  then  to 
make  Jacob  and  Eli  brothers,  who  are  there  set  down  in  different 
lines,  it  is  said  that  Matthan  of  the  line  of  Solomon,  and  Melchi 


512 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXI. 


of  the  line  of  Nathan,  successively  married  the  same  woman 
(Estha  by  name)  of  whom  Matthan  begat  Jacob,  and  Melchi 
begat  Eli :  whereupon  Jacob  and  Eli  being  brothers  by  the 
mother,  though  of  different  fathers,  Eli  dying  without  issue, 
Jacob  was  obliged  by  law  to  marry  his  relict,  and  so  to  raise  up 
seed  to  his  brother  Eli. 

Now  all  this  is  grounded  upon  an  ancient  story  of  one  Julius 
Africanus  recorded  by  Eusebius,  in  his  first  book  and  seventh 
chapter.  And  of  late  Faustus  Socinus,  (who  having  denied 
Christ's  divine  nature,  was  resolved  to  cut  him  short  both  root 
and  branch,  and  to  deny  his  human  too ;  at  least  as  to  the  most 
considerable  circumstance  of  it,  which  concerned  the  credit  of  his 
being  the  true  Messias),  he,  I  say,  catches  at  this  forlorn  story, 
and  ascribes  much  to  it  in  that  book  of  his  called  Lectiones 
Sacrce ;  and  though  generally  a  professed  despiser  of  antiquity, 
yet  when  he  thinks  it  may  make  any  thing  for  his  purpose,  he  can 
catch  at  every  fabulous  scrap  of  it,  and  thereupon  vouches  this 
as  authentic,  even  for  its  antiquity.  From  which  opinion  it 
follows,  that  Christ  was  only  the  reputed  son  of  David,  that  is  to 
say,  because  his  mother  wras  married  to  one  who  was  really  of 
David's  line.  And  this  the  whole  sect  of  Socinus  affirms  to  be 
sufficient  to  denominate  and  make  Christ  the  son  of  David,  and 
accordingly  allow  him  so  to  be  upon  no  other  or  nearer  account. 

But  of  the  authors  and  asserters  of  this  opinion  we  may  well  de- 
mand, that  admitting  Christ  might  upon  this  account  be  called  the 
son  of  David  in  the  large  and  loose  way  of  that  denomination,  yet 
how  could  he  for  this  only  reason  be  called  the  seed  of  David  ?  Nay, 
and  what  is  yet  more  full  and  express,  be  said  to  be  "  made  of  the 
seed  of  David,"  as  it  is  in  R,om.  i.  3;  and  further,  to  be  "the 
fruit  of  his  loins,"  as  it  is  in  Acts  ii.  30,  I  say,  with  what  pro- 
priety, or  accord  with  the  common  use  of  speaking,  could  one 
man,  be  said  to  be  another  man's  seed  and  the  fruit  of  his  loins, 
when  he  had  no  other  relation  to  him  in  the  world,  than  that  his 
mother  only  married  with  a  person  who  stood  so  related  to  that 
other?  I  believe  the  Jews  would  desire  no  greater  a  concession 
from  us  than  this,  whereby  to  conclude  and  argue  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth not  to  have  been  the  true  Messias.  Let  us  therefore  leave 
this  opinion  to  itself,  as  destructive  to  the  main  foundation  of 
our  religion,  and  fit  to  be  owned  by  none  but  the  mortal  enemies 
of  Christ  and  Christianity,  the  Jews  and  the  Socinians;  .and  so 
pass  to  the 

Second  opinion,  which  is,  that  both  Joseph  and  Mary  came 
from  David  by  true  and  real  descent,  and  that,  as  Joseph's  gene- 
alogy and  pedigree  is  set  down  in  that  line  which  St.  Matthew 
gives  an  account  of ;  so  the  Virgin  Mary's  lineage  is  recited  in 
that  which  is  recorded  by  St.  Luke ;  which  opinion,  as  it  has  been 
generally  received  by  divines  of  the  greatest  note,  and  best 
answers  those  difficulties  and  objections  which  the  other  is  beset 


THE  LINEAL  DESCENT  OF  JESUS  OF  NAZARETH. 


513 


with ;  so  I  shall  endeavour  fully  to  clear  and  set  it  down  in  these 
following  propositions. 

1.  The  first  proposition  is  this,  That  the  designs  of  the  two 
evangelists,  in  their  respective  deductions  of  our  Saviour's  pedi- 
gree, are  very  different.  For  St.  Matthew  intends  only  to  set  down 
his  political  or  royal  pedigree,  by  which  he  had  right  to  the  crown 
of  the  Jews ;  but  St.  Luke  shows  his  natural  descent  through  the 
several  successions  of  those  from  whom  he  took  flesh  and  blood. 
And  that  this  is  so,  besides  that  natural  reason  taken  from  the. 
impossibility  of  one  and  the  same  person's  having  two  several 
fathers,  as  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke  seem  at  first  sight  to  im- 
port :  we  have  these  further  arguments  for  the  said  assertion ;  as 
first  that  St.  Matthew  begins  his  reckoning  only  from  Abraham  ; 
to  whom  the  first  promise  of  the  kingdom  was  made,  Gen.  xvii. 
6.  But  St.  Luke  runs  his  line  up  to  Adam,  the  first  head  and 
fountain  of  human  nature ;  which  plainly  shows  that  one  deduced 
only  his  title  to  the  crown,  the  other  the  natural  descent  of  his 
humanity.  And  then  in  the  second  place,  that  St.  Matthew 
used  the  word  [begat]  only  in  a  political  sense,  is  further  clear 
from  this,  that  he  applies  it  to  him  who  had  no  child,  even  to 
Jeconiah,  of  whom  it  is  expressly  said  in  Jeremiah  xxii.  30,  that 
God  "wrote  him  childless."  Whereupon,  being  deposed  by  the 
king  of  Babylon,  Zedekiah  his  uncle  was  made  king,  and  after- 
wards, upon  the  removal  of  him  also  for  his  rebellion,  there  re- 
maining no  more  of  the  line  of  Solomon,  Salathiel  being  next  of 
kin,  was  declared  king  of  the  Jews :  which  Salathiel,  upon  that 
account,  is  said  to  be  begot  by  Jeconiah,  in  St.  Matthew ;  not 
because  he  was  naturally  his  son,  but  legally  and  politically  so ; 
as  succeeding  him  in  the  inheritance  of  the  crown.  For  though 
in  1  Chron.  iii.  17,  there  is  mention  of  Assir  and  of  Salathiel, 
as  it  were  of  two  sons  of  Jeconiah ;  yet,  in  truth,  Assir  there  is 
not  the  proper  name  of  a  person,  nor  of  any  son  of  Jeconiah, 
but  is  only  an  appellative  of  Jeconiah  himself,*  signifying  one 
under  captivity,  or  in  bonds,  as  Jeconiah  then  was  in  Babylon, 
when  Salathiel  was  declared  king.  And  that  Salathiel  is  not 
there  set  down  as  his  son  in  a  natural  sense,  is  evident  from  the 
16th  verse  of  the  same  chapter,  where  Zedekiah  is  likewise  said 
to  be  his  son,  though  naturally  he  was  his  uncle;  yet  because 
Zedekiah  first  succeeded  him  in  the  kingdom,  and  Salathiel  next, 
Jeconiah  still  surviving,  therefore  both  of  them,  in  that  political 
sense  I  spoke  of,  are  said  to  be  his  sons,  whom,  in  a  natural  sense,  the 
prophet  Jeremy  (as  has  been  shown)  declares  to  have  been  childless. 

2.  The  second  proposition  is  this,  That  as  David  had  several 
sons  by  former  wives,  so  by  Bathsheba  also  he  had  three  besides 
Solomon,  of  which  the  eldest  next  to  him  was  Nathan  :f  and 

*  As  it  stands  rectified  by  Junius  and  Tremellius.  who  place  the  comma  after  Assir, 
and  not  between  Jeconiah  and  that, 
t  Note  that  those  four  sons  of  David  bj'  Bathsheba  mentioned  in  1  Chron.  iii.  5, 

Vol.  I.— 65 


514 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXI. 


that  Christ  descended  naturally  from  David,  not  by  Solomon,  but 
Nathan.  And  accordingly  that  St.  Luke  deduces  only  Nathan's 
line ;  upon  which  account  it  is  that  the  Jews  at  this  day,  in  op- 
position to  the  Christians,  make  it  one  main  article  of  their  creed, 
that  the  Messias  was  to  descend  naturally  from  Solomon;  and 
accordingly  pronounce  a  curse  upon  all  those  who  assert  the  con- 
trary :  though  to  this  very  hour  they  have  not  been  able  to  assign 
who  was  the  son  of  Jeconiah,  whom  God  wrote  childless ;  nor  to 
show  any  solid  reason  why,  if  Jeconiah  had  any  natural  issue  of 
his  .own,  the  crown  and  sceptre  of  Judah  came  to  be  devolved 
upon  the  line  of  Nathan,  as  it  actually  was  in  Salathiel  and  his 
successors.  Add  to  this,  which  is  a  thing  well  worth  observing, 
that  although  it  is  frequently  said  in  scripture,  that  the  Messiah 
should  descend  from  David,  yet  it  is  never  said  that  he  should 
descend  from  Solomon.  For  though  in  1  Chron.  xxii.  10,  it  is 
said  of  Solomon,  that  God  would  "  establish  the  throne  of  his 
kingdom  over  Israel  for  ever,"  yet  it  is  not  said  that  he  would 
establish  it  in  his  seed  or  line  ;  and  besides,  the  kingdom  here 
spoken  of  and  intended,  was  the  spiritual  kingdom  over  the  church 
of  God,  typified  in  that  temporal  one  of  Solomon :  which  spiritual 
kingdom  was  established  only  in  the  person  of  the  Messias,  whom 
we  believe  to  have  been  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  great  king  and 
head  of  the  church,  "  God  blessed  for  ever." 

3.  The  third  proposition  is  this,  That  the  crown  of  Judah 
being  now  come  into  the  line  of  Nathan  in  Salathiel,  whose  im- 
mediate son  was  Pedaiah  (though  not  mentioned  in  the  succession, 
because  he  died  before  his  father's  assumption  to  the  crown),  and 
next  to  Salathiel,  the  great  and  renowned  Zorobabel ;  forasmuch 
as  St.  Matthew  and  Luke  agree  from  Jeconiah  to  Zorobabel ; 
after  whom  they  divide,  each  ascribing  to  him  a  different  suc- 
cessor, viz.  one  of  them  Abiud,  and  the  other  Rhesa;  we  are 
rationally  to  suppose  that  these  two  were  the  sons  of  Zorobabel : 
and  that  from  Abiud  the  elder  brother  (who  only  had  a  right  to 
the  crown  and  kingdom)  lineally  descended  Joseph,  according  to 
the  calculation  of  St.  Matthew;  and  that  from  Rhesa,  the 
younger  brother,  descended  Mary,  of  whom  Jesus  was  born, 
according  to  St.  Luke's  description :  for  though  in  the  above- 
mentioned  third  chapter  of  1  Chron.  (where  there  is  an  account 
given  of  Zorobabel's  sons)  there  occur  not  the  names  of  Abiud 
and  Rhesa,  yet  it  being  common  with  the  Jews  for  one  man 
sometimes  to  have  two  names,  there  is  ground  enough  for  us, 
without  any  presumption,  to  believe  and  conclude  that  it  so  hap- 
pened here. 

4.  The  fourth  proposition  is  this,  That  it  was  the  custom  of 
the  Jews  not  to  reckon  the  woman  by  name  in  her  pedigree,  but 

are  not  there  set  down  according  to  the  order  of  their  birth.  For  Solomon,  though 
List  named,  was  certainly  born  first;  and  Nathan,  as  he  is  generally  reckoned,  immedi- 
ately next. 


THE  LINEAL  DESCENT  OF  JESUS  OF  NAZARETH.  515 

to  reckon  the  husband  in  right  of  his  wife.  For  which  reason 
Joseph  is  twice  reckoned,  viz.  first  in  his  own  right  by  St. 
Matthew,  and,  secondly  in  his  wife  Mary's  right  by  St.  Luke. 
For  Mary  was  properly  the  daughter  of  Eli ;  and  Joseph  who  is 
there  reckoned  after  him,  is  so  reckoned,  not  as  his  natural  son, 
but  as  his  son-in-law,  instead  of  his  wife  Mary,  according  to  that 
custom  of  the  Jews.  Whereupon  it  is  noted  by  Chemnitius,  that 
St.  Luke  doth  not  say  that  Joseph  was  the  son  of  Eli,  or  Eli 
begat  Joseph,  as  St.  Matthew  precisely  doth,  that  Jacob  begat 
Joseph,  but  tov  'H?a,  who  was  "of  Eli,"  that  is,  was  related  to 
him,  and  belonged  to  his  family,  viz.  as  his  son-in-law.  Nor 
ought  any  to  object  against  Mary's  being  the  daughter  of  Eli, 
that  ancient  and  received  tradition,  which  reports  her  the 
daughter  of  Joachim  and  Anna ;  for,  as  the  learned  Bishop 
Montague  observes,  Eli  and  Joachim,  however  they  are  two 
words,  and  very  different,  are  yet  but  one  name,  and  signify  but 
one  person ;  Eli  being  but  ixoxoptot ixov,  a  diminutive  of  Eliakim, 
and  Eliakim  the  same  with  Jehoiachim  or  Joachim,  as  appears 
from  2  Kings  xxiii.  34,  and  2  Chron.  xxxvi.  4,  quoting  withal  two 
noted  Jewish  rabbies,*  viz.  Macana  Ben  Nehemiee,  and  Rabbi 
Hacadosh,  in  confirmation  of  the  same,  and  with  particular  appli- 
cation of  it  to  the  father  of  the  blessed  Virgin,  there  pointed  out 
by  them  as  the  mother  of  the  Messias. 

5.  The  fifth  and  last  proposition  is  this,  That  although  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  naturally  descended  only  from  Mary,  yet  he  derives  not 
his  title  to  the  crown  and  kingdom  of  the  Jews  originally  by  the 
line  of  Mary,  forasmuch  as  she  sprang  from  the  line  of  Rhesa  the 
younger  son  of  Zorobabel,  but  received  that  from  Joseph,  who 
was  of  the  elder  line  by  Abiud ;  which  line  of  Abiud  failing  in 
Joseph,  as  having  no  issue,  the  right  of  inheritance  devolved 
upon  one  of  the  younger  line,  viz.  upon  Mary,  and  consequently 
upon  Jesus  her  son  and  legal  heir.  From  whence  there  rises  this 
unanswerable  argument,  both  against  the  opinion  of  those  who 
affirm  Joseph  to  have  had  other  children  by  a  former  wife ;  as 
also  against  that  old  heresy  of  Helvidius,  who  against  the  general 
and  constant  sense  of  the  church,  denied  the  perpetual  virginity 
of  Mars',  affirming  that  Joseph  had  other  children  by  her  after 
the  birth  of  Jesus.  Spanhemius,  in  his  Dubia  Evangelica,  con- 
cludes against  the  opinion  of  Helvidius  (which  I  much  marvel  at) 
merely  upon  the  account  of  decency  and  congruity,  as  judging  it 
more  suitable  and  agreeable  to  that  honourable  esteem  we  ought 
to  have  of  our  blessed  Saviour's  mother,  to  hold  that  after  his 
birth  she  remained  a  perpetual  virgin.  But  I  add,  that  to  assert 
so,  seems  not  only  decent,  but  of  as  absolute  necessity,  as  that 
Jesus  Christ  the  Messiah  was  to  be  of  right  king  of  the  Jews. 
For  had  Joseph  had  any  children  either  "by  Mary,  or  any  other 
wife,  they,  as  coming  from  the  elder  line  of  Abiud  by  Joseph 

*  Acts  and  Monuments  of  ihe  Church,  p.  522. 


516 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXI. 


their  father,  must  have  claimed  the  inheritance  of  the  kingdom  in 
his  right,  and  not  Jesus  the  son  of  Mary,  who  descended  from  a 
younger  line,  and  so  could  not  legally  inherit,  but  upon  default 
of  issue  from  Joseph  the  only  remaining  heir  of  the  elder:  for 
this  was  the  law  of  Moses,  which  in  this  case  would  have  barred 
Jesus  from  a  title  to  the  kingdom  of  the  Jews.  But  we  know 
Jesus  came  to  fulfil  the  law  in  every  part  and  tittle  of  it ;  and 
therefore  would  never  have  owned  himself  king  of  the  Jews,  con- 
trary to  the  express  injunctions  and  tenor  of  it.  For  though  it 
must  be  confessed  that  the  gospel  makes  mention  of  the  brothers 
and  sisters  of  Jesus,  yet  it  is  known  to  be  most  usual  in  the 
Jewish  language  to  call  any  collateral  kindred,  as  cousins  and 
cousin-germans,  by  that  name.  And  antiquity  reports  the  Virgin 
Mary  to  have  had  two  sisters,  the  children  of  which  might  very 
well  be  called  the  brethren  of  Jesus.  So  that  from  hence  there 
can  be  no  necessity  of  granting  that  Jesus  had  any  brother  or 
sister,  either  by  his  mother  Mary,  or  his  reputed  and  legal  father 
Joseph. 

And  thus  I  have  endeavoured  to  make  out  our  blessed  Saviour's 
descent  from  the  line  of  David.  But  as  for  that  opinion  which 
asserts  him  to  have  been  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  because  his  mother 
Mary  was  cousin  to  Elizabeth  who  was  of  that  tribe,  it  is  very 
weak  and  groundless.  For  no  man  asserts  Jesus  to  have  been  so 
of  the  house  of  David,  as  to  exclude  all  relation  to  other  tribes 
and  families,  with  which  by  mutual  marriages  he  might  well  con- 
tract a  kindred;  it  being  prohibited  to  none  but  heiresses  to 
marry  out  of  their  own  family.  And  as  for  another  opinion, 
which  (in  order  to  the  making  of  Christ  a  priest)  affirms  Nathan 
the  son  of  David,  from  whom  Christ  descended,  to  have  been  a 
priest,  as  Solomon  was  a  king,  and  so  to  have  founded  a  sacerdotal 
line  as  Solomon  did  a  royal ;  this  being  a  conceit  both  so  ground- 
less in  itself,  and  withal  so  expressly  contradicted  by  the  scrip- 
ture, which  in  Heb.  vii.  13,  so  positively  affirms,  that  "no  man  of 
the  tribe  of  Judah  ever  gave  attendance  at  the  altar I  say,  upon 
this  account  it  deserves  no  further  thought,  and  much  less 
confutation. 

Now  to  sum  up  all  that  has  been  delivered,  it  briefly  amounts 
to  thus  much,  that  the  royal  line  of  David  by  Solomon  being 
extinct  in  Jeconiah,  the  crown  and  kingdom  passed  into  the 
immediately  younger  line  of  Nathan  (another  son  of  David)  in 
Salathiel  and  Zorobabel ;  which  Zorobabel  having  two  sons,  Abiud 
and  Rhesa,  the  royal  dignity  descended  of  right  upon  the  line  of 
Abiud,  of  which  Joseph  was  the  last,  who  marrying  the  Virgin 
Mary,  which  sprung  from  the  line  of  Rhesa  the  younger  son  of 
Zorobabel,  and  withal  having  no  issue  himself,  his  right  passes 
into  the  line  of  Mary,  being  the  next  of  kin,  and  by  that  means 
upon  Jesus  her  son.  Whereupon  he  was  both  naturally  the  son 
of  David,  and  also  legally  the  king  of  the  Jews:  which  latter  is 


THE  LINEAL  DESCENT  OF  JESUS  OF  NAZARETH.  517 

accounted  to  us  by  St.  Matthew,  as  the  former  is  by  St.  Luke  ; 
who  delivers  down  the  pedigree  of  Mary  the  mother  of  Jesus, 
and  daughter  of  Eli :  though  Joseph  her  husband  only  stands 
there  named  according  to  the  known  way  of  the  Jews'  computing 
their  genealogies. 

And  this  to  me  seems  a  most  clear,  full  and  manifest  deduc- 
tion of  our  Saviour's  pedigree  from  David,  which  yet  I  shall 
further  confirm  with  this  one  consideration ;  that  whatsoever 
cavils  the  modern  Jews  and  others  make  now-a-days  against  the 
genealogies  recorded  by  the  evangelist ;  yet  the  Jews,  their  con- 
temporaries, who  were  most  nice  and  exactly  skilful  in  things  of 
this  nature,  and  withal  most  maliciously  bent  against  Christ  and 
Christianity,  never  offered  to  quarrel  against  or  invalidate  the 
accounts  they  have  given  us  of  this  particular ;  which  had  they 
been  faulty,  the  Jews  would  most  certainly  have  done  ;  this  giv- 
ing them  so  vast  an  advantage  against  us.  And  this  consideration 
alone,  were  we  now  not  able  particularly  to  clear  these  matters, 
is  of  that  weight  and  substance,  that,  so  far  as  terms  of  moral 
certainty  can  demonstrate  a  thing,  it  ought  with  every  sober  and 
judicious  person  to  have  even  the  force  of  a  demonstration.  But 
the  discussion  which  has  already  passed  upon  this  subject  will 
afford  us  ground  firm  enough  for  the  most  rational  and  impartial 
belief  to  stand  upon.  However,  if  any  one  knows  some  other 
way  of  clearing  this  great  article  of  our  faith,  which  may  better 
accord  all  difficulties,  and  lie  open  to  fewer  and  lesser  exceptions, 
he  will  do  a  worthy  service  to  the  Christian  religion  to  produce 
it,  and  none  shall  be  more  thankful  to  him  for  it  than  myself. 

Having  thus  finished  the  second  part  of  my  text,  which  speaks 
Christ  "  the  offspring  of  David,"  according  to  his  human  nature  ; 
as  the  first  declared  him  "the  root  of  David"  in  respect  of  his 
divine,  I  shall  descend  now  to 

III.  That  last  part  of  the  text,  which  represents  him  to  us 
under  the  glorious  denomination  of  the  bright  and  morning  star. 

Three  things  there  are  considerable  in  a  star.  1.  The  nature 
of  its  substance.  2.  The  manner  of  its  appearance.  3.  The 
quality  of  its  operation.  In  every  one  of  which  respects  Christ 
bears  a  lively  resemblance  to  it. 

1.  And  first  for  the  nature  of  its  substance.  It  is  commonly 
defined  in  philosophy  the  purest  and  most  refined  part  of  its  orb  ; 
by  which  it  is  distinguished  from  all  those  meteors  and  shining 
nothings  that  ascend  no  further  than  the  air,  how  high  soever  the 
mistake  and  ignorance  of  vulgar  eyes  may  place  them;  as  also 
from  the  other  parts  of  the  celestial  sphere  or  orb  in  which  it  is. 
In  like  manner,  was  not  Christ  the  purest  and  the  noblest  part  of 
the  world,  which  was  the  sphere  and  orb  wherein,  during  his 
humiliation,  he  was  pleased  to  move  ?  He  was  the  very  flower, 
the  extract  and  quintessence  of  mankind,  uniting  all  the  perfec- 

2X 


518 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXI. 


tions  of  it  in  his  person,  without  any  alloy  or  mixture  of  imper- 
fection. Upon  which  account  David,  by  the  spirit  of  prophecy, 
calls  him  "  fairer  than  the  sons  of  men,"  as  being  "  anointed  with 
the  oil  of  gladness  above  his  fellows :"  that  is,  the  graces  of  the 
Spirit  descended  not  upon  him  in  those  minute  portions  and 
stinted  measures  that  they  do  upon  other  mortals.  Their  drop 
was  nothing  to  his  ocean. 

And  to  show  yet  further  of  how  pure  a  make  he  was,  we  know 
him  to  have  been  wholly  untouched  with  any  thing  of  that 
original  stain,  which  has  universally  sunk  into  the  nature  of  all 
men  besides.  He  was  a  second  Adam  without  any  of  the  guilt 
contracted  by  the  first ;  he  was  born  a  man  without  any  human 
imperfections ;  a  rose  without  thorns.  He  was  nothing  but 
purity  itself;  virtue  clothed  in  a  body,  and  innocence  incarnate. 
So  blameless  and  free  from  all  shadow  of  guilt,  that  the  very- 
Jews,  his  bitter  enemies,  gave  him  this  testimony,  "that  he  had 
done  all  things  well,"  Mark  vii.  37.  And  even  Pilate,  his  unjust 
judge,  though  he  took  from  him  his  life,  yet  left  him  his  inno- 
cence, declaring  openly,  "  that  he  found  in  him  no  fault  at  all," 
John  xviii.  38. 

There  are  spots,  they  say,  not  in  the  moon  only,  but  also  in 
the  face  of  the  sun  itself:  but  this  star  was  of  a  greater  and 
more  unblemished  lustre,  for  not  the  least  spot  wTas  ever  dis- 
covered in  it,  though  malice  and  envy  itself  were  the  perspect- 
ives through  which  most  of  the  world  beheld  it.  And  as  it  is 
the  privilege  of  the  celestial  luminaries  to  receive  no  tincture, 
sullage,  or  defilement,  from  the  most  noisome  sinks  and  dunghills 
here  below,  but  to  maintain  a  pure,  untainted,  virgin  light,  in 
spite  of  all  their  exhalations :  so  our  Saviour  shined  in  the  world 
with  such  an  invincible  light  of  holiness,  as  suffered  nothing  of 
the  corrupt  manners  and  depraved  converse  of  men  to  rub  the 
least  filth  or  pollution  upon  him.  He  was  not  capable  of  receiv- 
ing any  impression  from  all  the  sin  and  villany  which,  like  a 
contagion,  fastened  upon  every  soul  round  about  him.  In  a 
wrord,  he  was  pure,  righteous,  and  undefiled ;  not  only  above  the 
world,  but,  what  is  more,  in  the  midst  of  it. 

2.  The  next  thing  considerable  in  a  star  is  the  manner  of  its 
appearance.  It  appears  but  small,  and  of  a  little  compass ;  so 
that,  although  our  reason  assures  us  that  it  is  bigger  than  the 
wThole  earth,  yet  our  sight  would  seem  to  persuade  us,  that  it  is 
not  much  bigger  than  a  diamond  sparkling  upon  the  circle  of  a 
little  ring.  And  now  how  appositely  does  this  consideration 
also  suit  the  condition  of  our  Saviour!  who,  both  in  his  rising 
and  shining  upon  the  world,  seemed,  in  the  eyes  of  all  men,  but 
a  small  and  a  contemptible  thing ;  a  poor,  helpless  man ;  first 
living  upon  a  trade,  and  then  upon  something  that  was  much 
meaner,  namely,  upon  alms.  Whereupon,  what  slight  thoughts 
had  they  of  his  person !  as  if  he  had  been  no  more  than  an  ordi- 


THE  LINEAL  DESCENT  OF  JESUS  OF  NAZARETH. 


519 


nary-  soul,  joined  to  an  ordinary  body;  and  so  sent  into  the 
world  to  take  his  course  in  the  common  lot  of  mortality.  They 
little  dreamed  of  a  Deity,  and  of  something  greater  than  the  world 
lodged  in  that  little  tabernacle  of  his  flesh.  So  that  notwithstand- 
ing his  being  the  great  and  almighty  God,  the  Lord  of  hosts,  and 
King  of  kings,  yet  the  generality  of  men  took  him  for  but  a  mean 
person,  and  such  another  living  piece  of  clay  as  themselves.  And 
what  could  be  the  cause  of  his  being  thought  so,  but  the  same 
that  makes  stars  to  be  thought  little  things,  even  their  height  and 
vast  distance  from  poor  earthly  spectators  ?  so  the  glories  of  Christ's 
person  were,  by  the  very  transcendency  of  their  height,  placed 
above  the  reach  and  ken  of  a  mortal  apprehension.  And  God 
must  yet  elevate  our  reason  by  revelation,  or  the  Son  of  God  him- 
self will  still  seem  but  a  small  thing  in  our  eyes.  For  carnal  reason 
measures  the  greatest  things  by  all  the  disadvantages  of  their  out- 
ward appearance,  just  as  little  children  judge  of  the  proportion  of  the 
sun  and  moon,  reckoning  that  to  be  the  smallness  of  the  object  which 
is  only  the  distance  of  the  beholder,  or  the  weakness  of  the  organ. 

3.  The  third  and  last  thing  to  be  considered  in  a  star  is,  the 
quality  of  its  operation,  which  is  twofold :  first,  open  and  visible, 
by  its  light:  secondly,  secret  and  invisible,  by  its  influence.  And, 

First,  This  morning  star  operates  by  its  brightness  and  lus- 
tre ;  in  respect  of  which  it  is  the  first  fruits  of  light,  and,  as  it 
were,  day  in  its  minority;  clearing  the  heavenly  stage,  and 
chasing  away  all  other  stars,  till  it  reigns  in  the  firmament  alone. 
And  now,  to  make  good  the  comparison  between  Christ  and  this, 
we  shall  show  how  he  by  his  appearance  chased  away  many 
things  much  admired  and  gazed  at  by  the  world,  and  particularly 
these  three. 

(1.)  Much  of  the  heathenish  worship  and  superstition,  which 
not  only  like  a  cloud,  but  like  a  black  and  a  dark  night,  had  for 
a  long  time  covered  the  face  of  the  whole  earth,  and  made  such 
triumphs  over  the  reason  of  mankind,  that  in  nothing  more  ap- 
peared the  ruins  and  decays  of  our  nature.  And  it  was  unques- 
tionably the  greatest  and  severest  instance  of  the  divine  wrath 
upon  man  for  his  original  apostasy  from  God,  thus  to  leave  him 
confounded  and  uncertain  in  the  management  of  the  greatest 
affair  and  concernment  of  his  soul,  his  religion :  so  that,  as  it 
was  then  ordered,  it  was  nothing  else  but  a  strange  confused 
compound  of  absurdity,  and  impiety.  For  as  to  the  object  of 
their  worship,  the  apostle  tells  us,  that  they  worshipped  devils, 
1  Cor.  x.  20 ;  and  elsewhere  they  worshipped  men  like  them- 
selves ;  nay,  birds,  and  beasts,  and  creeping  things ;  and,  as  his- 
torians tell  us,  roots  and  herbs,  leeks  and  onions ;  yea,  and  their 
own  base  desires  and  affections ;  deifying  and  building  temples 
to  lust,  anger,  revenge,  and  the  like.  In  sum,  they  worshipped 
all  tilings  but  God,  who  only  of  all  things  was  to  have  been 
worshipped. 


520 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXI. 


Now  upon  the  coming  of  Christ,  very  much,  though  not  all,  of 
this  idolatrous  trumpery  and  superstition  was  driven  out  of  the 
world:  so  that  many  of  the  oracles  (those  great  instruments  of 
delusion)  ceased  about  the  time  of  our  Saviour's  nativity.  The 
divine  power  then  dispossessing  the  devil  of  his  greater  temples, 
as  well  of  his  lesser,  the  bodies  of  men :  and  so  casting  down 
the  throne  of  fallacy  and  superstition,  by  which  he  had  so  long 
enslaved  the  vassal  world,  and  led  it  captive  at  his  pleasure. 

(2.)  As  the  heathenish  false  worship,  so  also  the  Jewish  im- 
perfect worship  began  to  be  done  away  by  the  coming  of  Christ. 
The  Jews  indeed  drew  their  religion  from  a  purer  fountain  than 
the  Gentiles;  God  himself  being  the  author  of  it,  and  so  both 
ennobling  and  warranting  it  with  the  stamp  of  divine  authority. 
Yet  God  was  pleased  to  limit  his  operations  in  this  particular  to 
the  narrowness  and  small  capacities  of  the  subject  which  he  had 
to  deal  with ;  and  therefore  the  Jews,  being  naturally  of  a  gross 
and  sensual  apprehension  of  things,  had  the  economy  of  their 
religion,  in  many  parts  of  it,  brought  down  to  their  temper,  and 
were  trained  to  spirituals  by  the  ministry  of  carnal  ordinances. 
Which  yet  God  was  pleased  to  advance  in  their  signification,  by 
making  them  types  and  shadows  of  that  glorious  archetype  that 
was  to  come  into  the  world,  his  own  Son ;  both  in  person  and 
office  by  admirable  mystery  and  contrivance  fitted  to  be  the  great 
Redeemer  of  mankind.  He  therefore  being  the  person  to  whom 
all  the  prophets  bore  witness,  to  whom  all  ceremonies  pointed, 
and  whom  all  the  various  types  prefigured ;  it  was  but  reason 
that  when  he  actually  appeared  in  the  world,  all  that  previous 
pomp  and  apparatus  should  go  off  the  stage,  and,  like  shadows, 
vanish  before  the  substance.  And  accordingly  we  look  upon  the 
whole  Mosaical  institution  as  having  received  its  period  by  Christ, 
as  defunct  and  ceased ;  and  the  church  now  grown  up  to  that 
virility  and  stature,  as  to  be  above  the  discipline  of  beggarly 
rudiments,  and  like  an  adult  heir  passing  from  the  pedagogy  of 
tutors,  to  assume  its  full  liberty  and  inheritance  :  for  those  whom 
Christ  makes  free  are  free  indeed. 

(3.)  And  lastly,  All  pretended  false  Messiahs  vanished  upon 
the  appearance  of  Christ  the  true  one.  A  crown  will  not  want 
pretenders  to  claim  it,  nor  usurpers,  if  their  power  serves  them, 
to  possess  it :  and  hereupon  the  messiahship  was  pretended  to  by 
several  impostors:  but  fallacy  and  falsehood  being  naturally 
weak,  they  still  sunk  and  came  to  nothing.  It  must  be  confessed 
indeed,  that  there  rose  up  such  counterfeits  after  Christ  as  well 
as  before  him ;  yet  still,  I  think,  their  defeat  ought  to  be  ascribed 
to  his  coming:  because  as  a  light  scatters  the  darkness  on  all 
sides  of  it ;  so  there  was  such  a  demonstration  and  evidence  given 
of  Jesus'  being  the  true  Messias  by  his  coming  in  the  flesh,  that 
it  cast  its  discovering  influence  both  backwards  and  forwards ; 
and  equally  baffled  and  confuted  the  pretences  of  those  who  went 


THE  LINEAL  DESCENT  OF  JESUS  OF  NAZARETH.  521 

before,  and  of  those  who  rose  up  after  him.  So  potent  and 
victorious  is  truth,  especially  when  it  comes  upon  such  an  errand 
from  heaven,  as  to  save  the  world. 

Amongst  those  several  false  Messiahs,  it  is  remarkable  that  one 
called  himself  Barchocab,  or  the  son  of  a  star:  but  by  his  fall 
he  quickly  showed  himself  of  a  nature  far  differing  from  this 
glorious  morning  star  mentioned  in  the  text,  which  even  then 
was  fixed  in  heaven  while  it  shone  upon  the  earth.  It  was  not 
the  transitory  light  of  a  comet,  which  shines  and  glares  for  a 
while,  and  then  presently  vanishes  into  nothing ;  but  a  light  dura- 
ble and  immortal,  and  such  a  one  as  shall  outlive  the  sun,  and 
shine  and  burn  when  heaven  and  earth  and  the  whole  world  shall 
be  reduced  to  cinders. 

Having  thus  shown  how  Christ  resembled  a  star  in  respect 
of  his  external  visible  shinings  to  the  world,  by  which  he  drove 
away  much  of  the  heathenish  idolatry,  all  the  Jewish  ceremonies, 
together  with  all  the  pretences  of  all  counterfeit  Messiahs,  as 
the  light  dispels  and  chases  away  the  darkness ;  come  we  now 
in  the 

Second  place,  to  see  how  he  resembles  a  star  also  in  respect  of 
its  internal  secret  operation  and  influence  upon  all  sublunary  in- 
ferior beings.  And  indeed  this  is  the  noblest  and  the  greatest 
part  of  the  resemblance.  Stars  are  thought  to  operate  power- 
fully even  then  when  they  do  not  appear ;  and  are  felt  by  their 
effects,  when  they  are  not  seen  by  their  light.  In  like  manner, 
Christ  often  strikes  the  soul,  and  darts  a  secret  beam  into  the 
heart,  without  alarming  either  the  eye  or  ear  of  the  person 
wrought  upon.  And  this  is  called  both  properly  and  elegantly 
by  St.  Peter,  2  Pet.  i.  19,  "  the  day-star's  arising  in  our  hearts ;" 
that  is,  by  the  secret  silent  workings  of  his  Spirit  he  illuminates 
the  judgment,  bends  the  will  and  the  affections,  and  at  last 
changes  the  whole  man :  and  this  is  that  powerful  but  still  voice 
by  which  he  speaks  eternal  peace  to  the  souls  of  his  elect  in  the 
admirable  but  mysterious  work  of  their  conversion.  So  that  our 
great  concern  and  inquiry  should  be,  whether  those  heavenly 
beams  have  reached  us  inwardly,  and  pierced  into  our  minds,  as 
well  as  shone  in  our  faces:  and  whether  the  influence  of  this 
star  upon  us  has  been  such  as  to  govern  and  draw  us  after  it,  as 
it  did  the  wise  men,  and  thereby  both  make  and  prove  us  wise 
unto  salvation.  For  light  is  operative  as  well  as  beautiful,  and 
by  working  upon  the  spirits  affects  the  heart  as  well  as  pleases 
the  eye.  Above  all  things,  therefore,  let  us  be  strict  and  im- 
partial in  this  search,  where  the  thing  searched  for  is  of  such 
consequence.  For  since  there  are  false  lights,  light  itself  should 
be  tried;  and  if  we  would  know  infallibly  whether  it  be  the 
light  from  above,  by  which  we  are  led  and  live;  and  whether 
this  morning  star  has  had  its  full  efficacy  upon,  or  rather  within 
us  ;  let  us  see  whether  or  no  it  has  scattered  the  clouds  and  dark- 

Vol.  I.— 66  2  x2 


622 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXI. 


ness  of  our  spiritual  ignorance,  and  the  noisome  fogs  of  our  lusts 
and  vile  affections.  Do  we  live  as  the  sons  of  light  ?  do  we  walk 
as  in  the  day,  without  stumbling  into  the  mire  of  our  old  sins  ? 
these  are  the  only  sure  evidences  that  Christ  is  not  only  a  star 
in  himself,  but  such  a  one  also  to  us.  For  when  the  dayspring 
from  on  high  visits  us  truly  and  effectually,  it  first  takes  us  out 
of  these  shadows  of  death,  and  then  guides  our  feet  into  the 
ways  of  peace. 

To  which  God  of  his  mercy  vouchsafe  to  bring  us  all ;  to  whom 
be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all  praise,  might, 
majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  evermore.  Amen. 


523 


SERMON  XXXII. 

JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  PROVED  THE  TRUE  AND  ONLY  MESSIAH. 
[Preached  at  St.  Mary's,  Oxon,  before  the  University,  Christmas  Day,  1665.] 

John  i.  11. 

He  came  to  his  own,  and  his  own  received  him  not. 

I  cannot  think  it  directly  requisite  to  the  prosecution  of  these 
words,  nor  will  the  time  allotted  for  it  permit,  to  assert  and  vin- 
dicate the  foregoing  verses  from  the  perverse  interpretations  of 
that  false  pretender  to  reason  and  real  subverter  of  all  religion, 
Socinus,  who  in  the  exposition  of  this  chapter,  together  with 
some  part  of  the  eighth  (both  of  them  taken  from  the  posthumous 
papers  of  his  uncle  Lelius)  laid  the  foundation  of  that  great 
Babel  of  blasphemies,  with  which  he  afterwards  so  amused  and 
pestered  the  Christian  world,  and  under  colour  of  reforming  and 
refining,  forsooth,  the  best  of  religions,  has  employed  the  utmost 
of  his  skill  and  art  to  bring  men  indeed  to  believe  none.  And 
therefore  no  small  cause  of  grief  must  it  needs  be  to  all  pious 
minds,  that  such  horrid  opinions  should  find  so  ready  a  reception 
and  so  fatal  a  welcome  in  so  many  parts  of  the  world,  as  they 
have  done ;  considering  both  what  they  tend  to,  and  whom  they 
come  from.  For  they  tend  only  to  give  us  such  a  Christ  and 
Saviour,  as  neither  the  prophets  nor  evangelists  know  or  speak 
any  thing  of.  And  as  for  their  original,  if  we  would  trace  them 
up  to  that,  through  some  of  the  chief  branches  of  their  infamous 
pedigree,  we  must  carry  them  a  little  backward  from  hence ;  first 
to  the  forementioned  Faustus  Socinus  and  his  uncle  Lelius,  and 
from  them  to  Gentilis,  and  then  to  Servetus,  and  so  through  a  long 
interval  to  Mahomet  and  his  sect,  and  from  them  to  Photinus, 
and  from  him  to  Arius,  and  from  Arius  to  Paulus  Samosatenus, 
and  from  him  to  Ebion  and  Cerinthus,  and  from  them  to  Simon 
Magus,  and  so  in  a  direct  line  to  the  devil  himself :  under  whose 
conduct  in  the  several  ages  of  the  church  these  wretches  succes- 
sively have  been  some  of  the  most  notorious  opposers  of  the 
divinity  of  our  Saviour,  and  would  undoubtedly  have  overthrown 
the  belief  of  it  in  the  world,  could  they  by  all  their  arts  of 
wresting,  corrupting,  and  false  interpreting  the  holy  text,  have 
brought  the  scriptures  to  speak  for  them ;  which  they  could 
never  yet  do.  And  amongst  all  the  scriptures  no  one  has  stood 
so  directly  and  immovably  in  their  way  as  this  first  chapter  of 


524 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXII. 


St.  John's  gospel,  a  chapter  carrying  in  it  so  bright  and  full 
an  assertion  of  the  eternal  godhead  of  the  Son,  that  a  man  must 
put  common  sense  and  reason  extremely  upon  the  rack,  before  he 
can  give  any  tolerable  exposition  of  it  to  the  contrary.  So  that 
an  eminent  Dutch  critic  (who  could  find  in  his  heart,  as  much  as 
in  him  lay,  to  interpret  away  that  noble  and  pregnant  place  of 
scripture,  John  viii.  58,  "  Before  Abraham  was  I  am,"  from  being 
any  proof  at  all  of  Christ's  eternal  pre-existence  to  his  incarna- 
tion, and  so  to  give  up  one  of  the  main  forts  of  the  Christian 
religion  to  the  Socinians)  has  yet  been  forced  by  the  over- 
powering evidence  of  this  chapter  (notwithstanding  all  his  shifts, 
too  manifestly  showing  what  he  would  be  at)  to  express  himself 
upon  this  subject  more  agreeably  to  the  sense  of  the  catholic 
church,  than  in  many  other  places  he  had  done.  And  well  indeed 
might  he,  even  for  shame  itself,  do  so  much,  when  it  is  certain 
that  he  might  have  done  a  great  deal  more.  For  such  a  com- 
manding majesty  is  there  in  every  period  almost  of  this  chapter, 
that  it  has  forced  even  the  heathens  and  atheists  (persons  who 
valued  themselves  not  a  little  upon  their  philosophy)  to  submit 
to  the  controlling  truth  of  the  propositions  here  delivered,  and 
instead  of  contradicting  or  disputing,  to  fall  down  and  worship. 
For  the  things  here  uttered  were  mysteries  kept  hid  for  ages, 
and  such  as  God  had  for  four  thousand  years  together,  by  all 
the  wise  arts  and  methods  of  his  providence,  been  preparing  the 
world  for,  before  it  could  be  fit  or  ripe  to  receive  them :  and 
therefore  a  most  worthy  subject  they  must  needs  have  been  for 
this  beloved  apostle  to  impart  to  mankind,  who  having  so  long 
lain  in  the  bosom  of  truth  itself,  received  all  things  from  that 
great  original  by  more  intimate  and  immediate  communications 
than  any  of  the  rest  of  the  apostles  were  honoured  with.  In  a 
word,  he  was  of  the  cabinet ;  and  therefore  no  wonder  if  he  spake 
oracles. 

In  the  text  we  have  these  two  parts : 

I.  Christ's  coming  into  the  world,  in  those  words,  "  he  came  to 
his  own." 

II.  Christ's  entertainment,  being  come,  in  those  other  words, 
"  his  own  received  him  not." 

I.  In  the  former  of  which  there  being  an  account  given  us  of 
one  of  the  greatest  and  most  stupendous  actions  that  the  world  was 
ever  yet  witness  of;  there  cannot,  I  suppose,  be  a  truer  measure 
taken  of  the  nature  of  it,  than  by  a  distinct  consideration  of  the 
several  circumstances  belonging  to  it,  which  are  these.  1.  The 
person  who  came.  2.  The  condition  from  which  he  came.  3. 
The  persons  to  whom  he  came.  And  4.  And  lastly,  the  time  of 
his  coming.    Of  all  which  in  their  order.  And 

1.  First  for  the  person  who  came.  It  was  the  second  person  in 
the  glorious  Trinity,  the  ever  blessed  and  eternal  Son  of  God; 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  THE  TRUE  PROMISED  MESSIAH.  525 

concerning  whom  it  is  a  miracle  and  a  kind  of  paradox  to  our  reason 
(considering  the  condition  of  his  person)  how  he  could  be  said  to 
come  at  all ;  for  since  all  coming  is  motion  or  progression  from 
a  place  in  which  we  were,  to  a  place  in  which  we  were  not  before ; 
and  since  infinity  implies  an  actual  comprehension  of,  and  a 
presence  to  all  places,  it  is  hard  to  conceive  how  he  who  was  God 
could  be  said  to  come  any  whither,  whose  infinity  had  made  all 
progression  to,  or  acquisition  of  a  new  place  impossible.  But 
Christ,  who  delighteth  to  mingle  every  mercy  with  miracle  and 
wonder,  took  a  finite  nature  into  the  society  and  union  of  his 
person :  whereupon  what  was  impossible  to  a  divine  nature,  was 
rendered  very  possible  to  a  divine  person ;  which  could  right- 
fully and  properly  entitle  itself  to  all  the  respective  actions  and 
properties  of  either  nature  comprehended  within  its  personality: 
so  that  being  made  man,  he  could  do  all  things  that  man  could 
do,  except  only  sin.  Every  thing  that  was  purely  human, 
and  had  nothing  of  any  sinful  deficiency  or  turpitude  cleaving 
to  it,  fell  within  the  verge  and  compass  of  his  actions.  But 
now  was  there  ever  any  wonder  comparable  to  this !  to  behold 
divinity  thus  clothed  in  flesh!  the  creator  of  all  things  hum- 
bled not  only  to  the  company,  but  also  to  the  cognation  of 
his  creatures!  It  is  as  if  we  should  imagine  the  whole  world 
not  only  represented  upon,  but  also  contained  in  one  of  our  little 
artificial  globes  ;  or  the  body  of  the  sun  enveloped  in  a  cloud  as 
big  as  a  man's  hand ;  all  which  would  be  looked  upon  as  aston- 
ishing impossibilities;  and  yet  as  short  of  the  other,  as  the 
greatest  finite  is  of  an  infinite,  between  which  the  disparity  is 
immeasurable.  For  that  God  should  thus  in  a  manner  transform 
himself,  and  subdue  and  master  all  his  glories  to  a  possibility  of 
human  apprehension  and  converse,  the  best  reason  would  have 
thought  it  such  a  thing  as  God  could  not  do,  had  it  not  seen  it 
actually  done.  It  is,  as  it  were,  to  cancel  the  essential  distances 
of  things,  to  remove  the  bounds  of  nature,  to  bring  heaven  and 
earth,  and,  which  is  more,  both  ends  of  the  contradiction  together. 

And  thereupon  some,  who  think  it  an  imputation  upon  their 
reason  to  believe  any  thing  but  what  they  demonstrate  (which 
is  no  thanks  to  them  at  all),  have  invented  several  strange  hypo- 
theses and  salvos  to  clear  up  these  things  to  their  apprehensions ; 
as  that  the  divine  nature  was  never  personally  united  to  the  hu- 
man, but  only  passed  through  it  in  a  kind  of  imaginary,  fantastic 
way  ;  that  is,  to  speak  plainly,  in  some  way  or  other  which  neither 
scripture,  sense,  nor  reason  know  any  thing  of.  And  others  have 
by  one  bold  stroke  cut  off  all  such  relation  of  it  to  the  divine 
nature,  and  in  much  another  sense  than  that  of  the  psalmist, 
made  Christ  "  altogether  such  a  one  as  themselves,"  that  is  a 
mere  man,  avflpwrtu?,  for  Socinus  would  needs  be  as  good 

a  man  as  his  Saviour. 

But  this  opinion,  whatsoever  ground  it  may  have  got  in  this 


526 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[serm.  XXXII. 


latter  age  of  the  church,  yet  no  sooner  was  it  vented  and  de- 
fended by  Photinus,  bishop  of  Sirmium,  but  it  was  immediately- 
crushed  and  universally  rejected  by  the  church :  so  that  although 
several  other  heresies  had  their  course,  and  were  but  at  length 
extinguished,  and  not  without  some  difficulty,  yet  this,  like  an 
indigested  meteor,  appeared  and  disappeared  almost  at  the  same 
time.  However  Socinus  beginning  where  Photinus  had  long 
before  left  off,  licked  up  his  deserted  forlorn  opinion,  and  lighting 
upon  worse  times  has  found  much  better  success. 

But  is  it  true  that  Christ  came  into  the  world  ?  then  sure,  I 
am  apt  to  think,  that  this  is  a  solid  inference,  that  he  had  an  ex- 
istence and  a  being  before  he  came  hither ;  since  every  motion  or 
passage  from  one  place  or  condition  to  another  supposes  the  thing 
or  person  so  moving  to  have  actually  existed  under  both  terms ; 
to  wit,  as  well  under  that  from  which,  as  to  that  which  he  passes. 
But  if  Christ  had  nothing  but  a  human  nature,  which  never 
existed  till  it  was  in  the  world,  how  could  that  possibly  be  said 
to  come  into  the  world  ?  The  fruit  that  grows  upon  a  tree,  and 
so  had  the  first  moment  of  its  existence  there,  cannot  with  any 
propriety  or  truth  of  speech  be  said  to  have  come  to  that  tree, 
since  that  must  suppose  it  to  have  been  somewhere  else  before. 
I  am  far  from  building  so  great  and  so  concerning  a  truth  merely 
upon  the  stress  of  this  way  of  expression ;  yet  till  the  reasoning 
grounded  upon  it  be  disproved,  I  suppose  it  is  not  therefore  to  be 
despised,  though  it  may  be  seconded  with  much  better. 

But  the  men  whom  we  contend  with,  seem  hugely  injurious  to 
him,  whom  they  call  their  Saviour,  while  they  even  crucify  him 
in  his  divinity,  which  the  Jews  could  never  do ;  making  his  very 
kindness  an  argument  against  his  prerogative.  For  his  conde- 
scending to  be  a  man  makes  them  infer  that  he  is  no  more ;  and 
faith  must  stop  here,  because  sight  can  go  no  further.  But  if  a 
prince  shall  design  to  be  familiar  and  to  converse  with  those  upon 
whom  he  might  trample,  shall  his  condescension  therefore  unking 
him,  and  his  familiarity  rob  him  of  his  royalty  ?  The  case  is  the 
same  with  Christ.  Men  cannot  persuade  themselves  that  a  deity 
and  infinity  should  lie  within  so  narrow  a  compass  as  the  con- 
temptible dimensions  of  a  human  body  :  that  omnipotence, 
omniscience,  and  omnipresence  should  be  ever  wrapped  in  swad- 
dling clothes,  and  abased  to  the  homely  usages  of  a  stable  and  a 
manger:  that  the  glorious  artificer  of  the  whole  universe,  "who 
spread  out  the  heavens  like  a  curtain,  and  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  earth,"  could  ever  turn  carpenter  and  exercise  an  in- 
glorious trade  in  a  little  cell.  They  cannot  imagine,  that  he  who 
"  commands  the  cattle  upon  a  thousand  hills,  and  takes  up  the 
ocean  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand,"  could  be  subject  to  the  mean- 
nesses of  hunger  and  thirst,  and  be  afflicted  in  all  his  appetites  : 
that  he  who  once  created,  and  at  present  governs,  and  shall  here- 
after judge  the  world,  should  be  abused  in  all  his  concerns  and 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  THE  TRUE  PROMISED  MESSIAH.  527 

relations,  be  scourged,  spit  upon,  mocked,  and  at  last  crucified. 
All  which  are  passages  which  lie  extremely  cross  to  the  notions 
and  conceptions  that  reason  has  framed  to  itself  of  that  high  and 
impassible  perfection  that  resides  in  the  divine  nature.  For  it  is 
natural  to  men  to  be  very  hardly  brought  to  judge  things  to  be 
any  more  than  what  they  appear;  and  it  is  also  as  natural  to 
them  to  measure  all  appearances  by  sense,  or  at  the  furthest  by 
reason ;  though  neither  of  them  is  a  competent  judge  of  the 
things  which  we  are  here  discoursing  of. 

2.  The  second  thing  to  be  considered  is  the  state  or  condition 
from  which  Christ  came ;  and  that  was  from  the  bosom  of  his 
Father,  from  the  incomprehensible,  surpassing  glories  of  the  god- 
head, from  an  eternal  enjoyment  of  an  absolute,  uninterrupted 
bliss  and  pleasure,  in  the  mutual,  ineffable  intercourses  between 
him  and  his  Father.  The  heaven  of  heavens  was  his  habitation, 
and  legions  of  cherubims  and  seraphims  his  humble  and  constant 
attendants.  Yet  he  was  pleased  to  disrobe  himself  of  all  this 
magnificence,  to  lay  aside  his  sceptres  and  his  glories,  and  in  a 
word  to  empty  himself  as  far  as  the  essential  fulness  of  the 
Deity  could  be  capable  of  such  a  dispensation. 

And  now,  if  by  the  poor  measures  and  proportions  of  a  man, 
we  may  take  an  estimate  of  this  great  action,  we  shall  quickly 
find  how  irksome  it  is  to  flesh  and  blood  to  have  been  happy,  to 
descend  some  steps  lower,  to  exchange  the  estate  of  a  prince  for 
that  of  a  peasant,  and  to  view  our  happiness  only  by  the  help  of 
memory  and  long  reflections.  For  how  hard  a  task  must  obe- 
dience needs  be  to  a  spirit  accustomed  to  rule  and  to  dominion! 
How  uneasy  must  the  leather  and  the  frieze  sit  upon  the  shoulder 
that  used  to  shine  with  the  purple  and  the  ermine !  All  change 
must  be  grievous  to  an  estate  of  absolute,  entire,  unmingled  hap- 
piness ;  but  then  to  change  to  the  lowest  pitch,  and  that  at  first, 
without  inuring  the  mind  to  the  burden  by  gradual,  intermedi- 
ate lessenings  and  declensions,  this  is  the  sharpest  and  most 
afflicting  calamity  that  human  nature  can  be  capable  of.  And 
yet  what  is  this  to  Christ's  humiliation  ?  He  who  tumbles  from  a 
tower  surely  has  a  greater  blow  than  he  who  slides  from  a  mole- 
hill. And  we  may  as  well  compare  the  falling  of  a  crumb  from 
the  table,  to  the  falling  of  a  star  from  the  firmament,  as  think 
the  abasement  of  an  Alexander  from  his  imperial  throne,  and 
from  the  head  of  all  the  Persian  and  Macedonian  greatness,  to 
the  condition  of  the  meanest  scullion  that  followed  his  camp,  any 
ways  comparable  to  the  descension  of  him  who  was  "  the  bright- 
ness of  his  Father's  glory,  and  the  express  image  of  his  person," 
to  the  condition  of  a  man,  much  less  of  a  servant,  and  a  crucified 
malefactor ;  for  so  was  Christ  treated.  This  was  the  strange  leap 
that  he  made  from  the  greatest  height  to  the  lowest  bottom: 
concerning  which  it  might  be  well  pronounced  the  greatest  won- 
der in  the  world,  that  he  should  be  able  so  far  to  humble  himself, 


528 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXII. 


were  it  not  yet  a  greater  that  he  could  be  willing.  And  thus 
much  for  the  second  circumstance. 

3.  The  third  is,  the  persons  to  whom  he  came,  expressed  by 
that  endearing  term  "his  own;"  and  this  in  a  more  peculiar, 
advanced  sense  of  propriety.  For  all  the  nations  of  the  world 
were  his  own  by  creation,  and  what  is  consequent  to  it  by  the  right 
of  possession  and  absolute  dominion ;  but  the  Jews  were  his  own 
by  fraternal  right  of  consanguinity.  He  was  pleased  to  derive 
his  humanity  from  the  same  stock,  to  give  them  the  honour  of 
being  able  to  call  the  God  of  heaven  and  the  Saviour  of  the 
world  their  brother. 

They  were  his  own  also  by  the  right  of  churchship,  as  se- 
lected and  enclosed  by  God  from  amidst  all  other  nations,  to  be 
the  seat  of  his  worship,  and  the  great  conservator)-  of  all  the 
sacred  oracles  and  means  of  salvation.  The  Gentiles  might  be 
called  God's  own,  as  a  man  calls  his  hall  or  his  parlour  his  own, 
which  yet  others  pass  through  and  make  use  of;  but  the  Jews 
were  so,  as  a  man  accounts  his  closet  or  his  cabinet  his  own ; 
that  is,  by  a  peculiar,  incommunicable  destination  of  it  to  his 
own  use. 

Those  who  have  that  hardy  curiosity  as  to  examine  the  reason 
of  God's  actions  (which  men  of  reason  should  still  suppose), 
wonder  that,  since  the  design  of  Christ's  coming  was  universal 
and  extending  to  all  mankind,  he  should  address  himself  to  so 
inconsiderable  a  spot  of  the  world,  as  that  of  Palestine,  confining 
the  scene  of  all  his  life  and  actions  to  such  a  small  handful  of 
men ;  whereas  it  would  have  seemed  much  more  suitable  to  the 
purposes  of  his  coming,  to  have  made  Rome,  at  that  time  the 
metropolis  of  the  western  world,  and  holding  an  intercourse  with 
all  nations,  the  place  of  his  nativity  and  abode :  as  when  a  prince 
would  promulge  a  law ;  because  he  cannot  with  any  convenience 
do  it  in  all  places,  therefore  he  does  it  in  the  most  eminent  and 
conspicuous.  To  which  argument  frequently  urged  by  the  ene- 
mies of  Christianity,  he  who  would  seek  for  a  satisfactory  answer 
from  any  thing  but  the  absoluteness  of  God's  sovereignty,  will 
find  himself  defeated  in  his  attempt.  It  was  the  mere  result  of 
the  divine  good  pleasure,  that  the  fountain  of  life  should  derive 
a  blessing  to  all  nations,  from  so  narrow  and  contemptible  a 
head. 

And  here  I  cannot  but  think  it  observable,  that  all  the  pas- 
sages of  the  whole  work  of  man's  redemption  carry  in  them  the 
marks,  not  only  of  mercy,  but  of  mercy  acting  by  an  unaccount- 
able sovereignty:  and  that  for  this  very  reason,  as  may  be  sup- 
posed, to  convince  the  world  that  it  was  purely  mercy  on  God's 
part,  without  any  thing  of  merit  on  man's,  that  did  all.  For 
when  God  reveals  a  Saviour  to  some  few,  but  denies  him  to 
more  ;  sends  him  to  a  people  despised,  but  passes  over  nations 
victorious,  honourable,  and  renowned,  he  thereby  gives  the  world 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  THE  TRUE  PROMISED  MESSIAH.  529 


to  know  that  his  own  will  is  the  reason  of  his  proceedings.  For 
it  is  worth  remarking,  that  there  is  nothing  that  befalls  men 
equally  and  alike,  but  they  are  prone  to  ascribe  it  either  to 
nature  or  merit.  But  where  the  plea  of  the  receivers  is  equal, 
and  yet  the  dispensation  of  the  benefits  vastly  unequal,  there 
men  are  taught  that  the  thing  received  is  grace ;  and  that  they 
have  no  claim  to  it  but  the  courtesy  of  the  dispenser  and  the 
largess  of  heaven  ;  which  cannot  be  questioned,  because  it  waters 
my  field,  while  it  scorches  and  dries  up  my  neighbour's.  If  the 
sun  is  pleased  to  shine  upon  a  turf,  and  to  gild  a  dunghill,  when 
perhaps  he  never  looks  into  the  bed-chamber  of  a  prince,  we  can- 
not vet  accuse  him  for  partiality.  That  short  but  most  signifi- 
cant* saying  in  the  evangelist,  May  I  not  do  what  I  will  with 
my  own  ?"  Matt.  xx.  15,  being  a  full  and  solid  answer  to  all  such 
objections. 

4.  The  fourth  and  last  circumstance  of  Christ's  coming  re- 
lated to  the  time  of  it :  he  came  to  the  Jews,  when  they  were  in 
their  lowest  and  worse  condition,  and  that  in  a  double  respect, 
national  and  ecclesiastical. 

(1.)  And  first  upon  a  civil  or  national  account.  It  was  not 
then  with  them  a  sin  those  triumphant  days  of  Solomon,  when 
for  plenty,  riches,  and  grandeur,  they  had  little  cause  either  to 
make  friends  or  to  fear  enemies,  but  shone  as  the  envy  and  terror 
of  all  the  surrounding  neighbourhood.  At  the  best  now  they 
were  but  a  remnant,  and  a  piece  of  an  often  scattered,  conquered, 
and  captivated  nation :  but  two  tribes  of  twelve,  and  those  under 
the  Roman  voke,  tributary  and  oppressed,  and  void  of  any  other 
privilege  but  only  to  obey,  and  to  be  fleeced  quietly  by  whomso- 
ever was  appointed  their  governor.  This  was  their  condition : 
and  could  there  be  any  inducement  upon  the  common  principles 
and  methods  of  kindness  to  visit  them  in  that  estate  ?  which 
could  be  nothing  else  but  only  to  share  with  them  in  servitude, 
and  to  bear  a  part  in  their  oppression. 

The  measure  of  men's  kindness  and  visits  bestowed  upon  one 
another,  is  usually  the  prosperity,  the  greatness,  and  the  interest 
of  the  persons  whom  they  visit ;  that  is,  because  their  favour  is 
profitable,  and  their  ill-will  formidable ;  in  a  word,  men  visit 
others  because  they  are  kind  to  themselves.  But  who  ever 
saw  coaches  and  liveries  thronging  at  the  door  of  the  orphan  or 
the  widow,  (unless  peradventure  a  rich  one),  or  before  the  house 
or  prison  of  an  afflicted,  decayed  friend  ?  No,  at  such  a  time  we 
account  them  not  so  much  as  our  own  ;  that  unfriends  and  un- 
brothers,  and  dissolves  all  relations,  and  it  is  seldom  the  dialect 
of  vi  y  good  friend,  any  longer  than  it  is  my  great  friend. 

But  it  was  another  sort  of  love  that  warmed  the  breast  of  our 
Saviour.  He  visits  his  kindred,  nay  he  makes  them  so  in  the 
lowest  ebb  of  all  their  outward  enjoyments :  when  to  be  a  Jew 
was  a  name  of  disgrace,  and  to  be  circumcised  a  mark  of  infamy : 

Vol.  I. — 67      "  2  Y 


530 


dr.  south's  sermons.  [serm.  XXXII. 


so  that  they  might  very  well  be  a  peculiar  people,  not.  only  be- 
cause God  separated  them  from  all  other  nations,  but  because  all 
other  nations  separated  themselves  from  them. 

(2.)  Consider  them  upon  an  ecclesiastical  account,  and  so  we 
shall  find  them  as  corrupted  for  a  church,  as  they  were  despised  for 
a  nation.  Even  in  the  days  of  the  prophet  Isaiah,  i  21,  it  was  his 
complaint,  "  that  the  faithful  city  was  become  an  harlot ;"  that  is, 
notable  for  two  things,  as  harlots  usually  are,  paint  and  impurity. 
Which  growing  corruption,  in  all  the  intervening  time,  from  thence 
to  the  coming  of  Christ,  received  a  proportionable  improvement : 
so  that  their  teachers,  and  most  seraphic  adored  doctors  of  the  law, 
wrere  still  ranked  with  hypocrites.  For  the  text  of  Moses  was  used 
only  to  authorize  a  false  comment,  and  to  warrant  the  impiety  of  a 
perverse  interpretation.  Still  for  all  their  villanies  and  hypocrisies 
they  borrowed  a  veil  from  Moses ;  and  his  name  was  quoted  and 
pretended  as  a  glorious  expedient  to  countenance  and  varnish  over 
well  contrived  corruptions.  Nay,  and  they  proceed  so  high,  that 
those  who  vouched  the  authority  of  Moses  most,  deny  the  being  of 
immaterial  substances,  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  in  which  is 
wrapped  up  the  very  spirit  and  vital  breath  of  all  religions :  and 
these  men  had  formed  themselves  into  a  standing  and  considerable 
sect  called  the  Sadducees ;  so  considerable,  that  one  of  them  once 
stepped  into  the  high-priesthood ;  so  that  whether  you  look  upon 
the  Sadducees  or  Pharisees,  thpy  had  brought  the  Jewish  church 
to  that  pass,  that  they  "  established  iniquity  by  a  law,"  or,  which 
is  worse,  turned  the  law  itself  into  iniquity. 

Now  the  state  of  things  being  thus  amongst  the  Jews  at  the 
time  of  Christ's  coming,  it  eminently  offers  to  us  the  considera- 
tion of  these  two  things. 

First,  The  invincible  strength  of  Christ's  love,  that  it  should 
come  leaping  over  such  mountains  of  opposition,  that  it  should 
triumph  over  so  much  Jewish  baseness  and  villany,  and  be  gra- 
cious even  in  spite  of  malice  itself.  It  did .  not  knock  at,  but 
even  break  open  their  doors.  Blessing  and  happiness  was  in  a 
manner  thrust  upon  them.  Heaven  would  have  taken  them  by 
force,  as  they  should  have  taken  heaven :  so  that  they  were  fain 
to  take  pains  to  rid  themselves  of  their  happiness,  and  it  cost 
them  labour  and  violence  to  become  miserable. 

Secondly,  It  declares  to  us  the  immovable  veracity  of  God's 
promise.  For  surely,  if  any  thing  could  reverse  a  promise,  and 
untie  the  bands  of  a  decree,  it  would  have  been  that  uncontrolled 
impiety  which  then  reigned  in  the  Jewish  church,  and  that  to 
such  a  degree,  that  the  temple  itself  was  profaned  into  a  den  of 
thieves,  a  rendezvous  of  higglers  and  drovers,  and  a  place  not  for 
the  sacrificing,  but  for  the  selling  of  sheep  and  oxen.  So  that 
God  might  well  have  forgotten  his  promise  to  his  people,  when 
they  had  altered  the  very  subject  of  the  promise,  and  as  much  as 
in  them  lay  had  ceased  to  be  his  people. 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  THE  TRUE  PROMISED  MESSIAH.  531 

II.  We  have  here  finished  the  first  part  of  the  text,  and  taken 
an  account  of  Christ's  coming  to  his  own,  and  his  coming  through 
so  many  obstacles :  may  we  not  therefore  now  expect  to  see  him 
find  a  magnificent  reception,  and  a  welcome  as  extraordinary  as 
his  kindness  ?  for  where  should  any  one  expect  a  welcome,  if  not 
coming  to  his  own  ?  and  coming  also  not  to  charge,  but  to  enrich 
them,  not  to  share  what  they  had,  but  to  recover  what  they  had 
lost ;  and,  in  a  word,  to  change  their  temporals  into  eternals,  and 
bring  an  overflowing  performance  and  fruition  to  those  who  have 
lived  hitherto  only  upon  promise  and  expectation;  but  it  fell  out 
much  otherwise,  "his  own  received  him  not." 

Nor  indeed  if  we  look  further  into  the  world  shall  we  find  this 
usage  so  very  strange  or  wonderful.  For  kindred  is  not  friend- 
ship, but  only  an  opportunity  of  nearer  converse,  which  is  the 
true  cause  of  a  natural  inducement  to  it.  It  is  not  to  have  the 
same  blood  in  one's  veins,  to  have  lain  in  the  same  womb,  or  to 
bend  the  knee  to  the  same  father,  but  to  have  the  same  inclina- 
tions, the  same  affections,  and  the  same  soul,  that  makes  the  friend. 
Otherwise  Jacob  may  supplant  Esau,  and  Esau  hate  and  design 
the  death  of  Jacob.  And  we  constantly  see  the  grand  seignior's 
coronation  purple  dipped  in  the  blood  of  his  murdered  brethren, 
sacrificed  to  reason  of  state,  or  at  least  to  his  own  unreasonable 
fears  and  suspicions.  But  friends  strive  not  who  shall  kill,  but 
who  shall  die  first.  If  then  the  love  of  kindred  is  so  small,  surely 
the  love  of  countrymen  and  neighbours  can  promise  but  little 
more.  A  prophet  may,  without  the  help  of  his  prophetic  spirit, 
foresee  that  he  shall  have  but  little  honour  in  his  own  country. 
Men  naturally  malign  the  greatness  or  virtue  of  a  fellow  citizen 
or  a  domestic ;  they  think  the  nearness  of  it  upbraids  and  obscures 
them :  it  is  a  trouble  to  have  the  sun  still  shining  in  their  faces. 

And  therefore  the  Jews  in  this  followed  but  the  common 
practice  of  men,  whose  emulation  usually  preys  upon  the  next 
superior  in  the  same  family,  company,  or  profession.  The 
bitterest  and  the  loudest  scolding  is  for  the  most  part  amongst 
those  of  the  same  street.  In  short,  there  is  a  kind  of  ill  disposi- 
tion in  most  men,  much  resembling  that  of  dogs,  they  bark  at 
what  is  high  and  remote  from  them,  and  bite  what  is  next. 

Now  in  this  second  part  of  the  text,  in  which  is  represented 
the  entertainment  which  Christ  found  in  the  world,  expressed 
to  us  by  these  words,  "  his  own  received  him  not,"  we  shall  con- 
sider these  three  things. 

1.  The  grounds  upon  which  the  Jews  rejected  Christ. 

2.  The  unreasonableness  of  those  grounds.  And, 

3.  The  great  arguments  that  they  had  to  the  contrary. 

As  to  the  first  of  these :  to  recken  up  all  the  pretences  that 
the  Jews  allege  for  their  not  acknowledging  of  Christ,  would  be 
as  endless  as  the  tales  and  fooleries  of  their  rabbies,  a  sort  of  men 
noted  for  nothing  more  than  two  very  ill  qualities,  to  wit,  that 


532 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[serm.  XXXII. 


they  are  still  given  to  invent  and  write  lies,  and  those  such 
unlikely  and  incredible  lies,  that  none  can  believe  them  but  such 
as  write  them.  But  the  exceptions  which  seem  to  carry  most  of 
reason  and  argument  with  them  are  these  two. 

First,  That  Christ  came  not  as  a  temporal  prince. 

Secondly,  That  they  looked  upon  him  as  an  underminer  and  a 
destroyer  of  the  law  of  Moses. 

(1.)  As  for  the  first.  It  was  a  persuasion  which  had  sunk 
into  their  very  veins  and  marrow,  a  persuasion  which  they  built 
upon  as  the  grand  fundamental  article  of  all  their  creed,  that 
their  Messiah  should  be  a  temporal  prince,  nor  can  any  thing 
beat  their  posterity  out  of  it  to  this  day.  They  fancied  nothing 
but  triumphs  and  trophies,  and  all  the  nations  of  the  earth 
licking  the  dust  before  them  under  the  victorious  conduct  of  their 
Messiah;  they  expected  such  a  one  as  should  disenslave  them 
from  the  Roman  yoke,  make  the  senate  stoop  to  their  sanhedrim, 
and  the  capitol  do  homage  to  their  temple.  Nay,  and  we  find 
the  disciples  themselves  leavened  with  the  same  conceit:  their 
minds  still  ran  upon  the  grandeurs  of  an  earthly  sovereignty, 
upon  sitting  at  Christ's  right  and  left  hand  in  his  kingdom, 
banqueting  and  making  merry  at  his  table,  and  who  should  have 
the  greatest  office  and  place  under  him.  So  carnal  were  the 
thoughts  even  of  those  who  owned  Christ  for  the  Messiah;  but 
how  much  more  of  the  rest  of  the  Jews,  who  contemned  and 
hated  him  to  the  same  degree  ?  So  that  while  they  were  feeding 
themselves  with  such  fancies  and  expectations,  how  can  we  sup- 
pose that  they  would  receive  a  person  bearing  himself  for  the 
Messiah,  and  yet  in  the  poor  habit  and  profession  of  a  mean 
mechanic,  as  also  preaching  to  them  nothing  but  humility,  self- 
denial,  and  a  contempt  of  those  glories  and  temporal  felicities, 
the  enjoyment  of  which  they  had  made  the  very  design  of  their 
religion?  Surely  the  frustration  of  their  hopes,  and  the  huge 
contrariety  of  these  things  to  their  beloved  preconceived  notions, 
could,,  not  but  enrage  them  to  the  greatest  disdain  and  rejection 
of  his  person  and  doctrine  imaginable. 

And  accordingly  it  did  so:  for  they  scorned,  persecuted,  and 
even  spit  upon  him  long  before  his  crucifixion  ;  and  no  doubt, 
between  rage  and  derision,  a  thousand  flouts  were  thrown  at 
him :  as,  What !  shall  we  receive  a  thread-bare  Messiah,  a  fellow 
fitter  to  wield  a  saw  or  a  hatchet  than  a  sceptre  ?  For  "  is  not 
this  the  carpenter's  son  ?"  And  have  we  not  seen  him  in  his  shop 
and  his  cottage  amongst  his  pitiful  kindred  ?  And  can  such  a  one 
be  a  fit  person  to  step  into  the  throne  of  David,  to  redeem  Israel, 
and  to  cope  with  all  the  Roman  power?  No,  it  is  absurd,  unrea- 
sonable, and  impossible :  and  to  be  in  bondage  to  the  Romans  is 
nobler  than  to  be  freed  by  the  hand  of  such  a  deliverer. 

(2.)  Their  other  grand  exception  against  him  was,  that  he  set 
himself  against  the  law  of  Moses,  their  reverence  to  which  was  so 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  THE  TRUE  PROMISED  MESSIAH.  533 

sacred,  that  they  judged  it  the  unchangeable  rule  of  all  human 
actions ;  and  that  their  Messiah  at  his  coming  was  to  impose  the 
observation  of  it  upon  all  nations ;  and  so  to  establish  it  for  ever : 
nay,  and  they  had  an  equal  reverence  for  all  the  parts  of  it,  as 
well  the  judicial  and  ceremonial  as  the  moral  ;  and  (being 
naturally  of  a  gross  and  a  thick  conception  of  things)  perhaps 
a  much  greater.  For  still  we  shall  find  them  more  zealous  in 
tithing  mint,  and  rue,  and  cummin,  and  washing  pots  and  platters 
(where  chiefly  their  mind  was)  than  in  the  prime  duties  of  mercy 
and  justice.  And  as  for  their  beloved  sabbath,  they  placed  the 
celebration  of  it  more  in  doing  nothing,  than  in  doing  good ;  and 
rather  in  sitting  still,  than  in  rescuing  a  life,  or  saving  a  soul.  So 
that  when  Christ  came  to  interpret  and  reduce  the  moral  law  to 
its  inward  vigour  and  spirituality,  they,  whose  soul  was  of  so 
gross  a  make,  that  it  was  scarce  a  spirit,  presently  defied  him  as 
a  Samaritan  and  an  impostor,  and  would  by  no  means  hear  of 
such  strange  impracticable  notions.  But  when  from  refining  and 
correcting  their  expositions  and  sense  of  the  moral  law,  he  pro- 
ceeded also  to  foretell  and  declare  the  approaching  destruction  of 
their  temple  ;  and  therewith  a  period  to  be  put  to  all  their  rites 
and  ceremonies,  they  grew  impatient,  and  could  hold  no  longer, 
but  sought  to  kill  him ;  and  thereby  thought  that  they  did  God 
good  service,  and  Moses  too.  So  wonderfully,  it  seems,  were 
these  men  concerned  for  God's  honour,  that  they  had  no  way  to 
show  it,  but  by  rejecting  his  Son,  out  of  deference  to  his 
servant. 

We  have  seen  here  the  two  great  exceptions  which  so  blocked 
up  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  Jewish  nation  against  Jesus 
Christ  their  true  Messiah,  that  when  he  came  to  his  own,  his  own 
rejected  and  threw  him  off.    I  come  now  in  the  next  place, 

2.  To  show  the  weakness  and  unreasonableness  of  these  excep- 
tions. And, 

First,  For  Christ's  being  a  temporal  monarch,  who  should  sub- 
due and  bring  all  nations  under  the  Jewish  sceptre.  I  answer, 
that  it  was  so  far  from  necessary,  that  it  was  absolutely  impossible 
that  the  Messiah  should  be  such  a  one^  and  that  upon  the  account 
of  a  double  supposition,  neither  of  which,  I  conceive,  will  be 
denied  by  the  Jews  themselves. 

(1.)  The  first  is  the  professed  design  of  his  coming,  which  was 
to  be  a  blessing  to  all  nations.  For  it  is  over  and  over  declared 
in  scripture,  that  "  in  the  seed  of  Abraham,"  that  is,  in  the 
Messiah,  "  all  nations  of  the  earth  should  be  blessed."  But  now 
if  they  mean  this  of  a  temporal  blessing,  as  I  am  sure  they  intend 
no  other,  then  I  demand  how  this  can  agree  with  his  being  such  a 
prince,  as,  according  to  their  description,  must  conquer  all  people, 
and  enslave  them  to  the  Jews,  as  "hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water,"  as  their  vassals  and  tributaries,  and,  in  a  word,  liable 
upon  all  occasions  to  be  insulted  over  by  the  worst  conditioned 

2t2 


534 


DR.  SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXII. 


people  in  the  world  ?  A  worthy  blessing  indeed,  and  such  a  one 
as  I  believe  few  nations  would  desire  to  be  beholden  to  the  seed 
of  Abraham  for.  For  there  is  no  nation  or  people  that  can  need 
the  coming  of  a  Messiah  to  bless  them  in  this  manner,  since  they 
may  bless  themselves  so  whensoever  they  please,  if  they  will  but 
send  messengers  to  some  of  their  neighbours,  wiser  and  more 
powerful  than  themselves,  and  declare  their  estates  and  country 
at  their  service,  provided  they  will  but  come  and  make  them 
slaves  without  calling  them  so  ;  by  sending  armies  to  take  posses- 
sion of  their  forts  and  garrisons,  to  seize  their  lands,  moneys,  and 
whatsoever  else  they  have ;  and  in  a  word,  to  oppress,  beggar, 
and  squeeze  them  as  dry  as  a  pumice,  and  then  trample  upon 
them  because  they  can  get  no  more  out  of  them.  Let  any  peo- 
ple, I  say,  as  they  shall  like  this,  apply  to  some  potent  overgrown 
prince,  whom  the  fools,  his  neighbours,  shall  have  made  so,  and 
I  dare  undertake  that  upon  a  word  speaking,  they  shall  find  him 
ready  to  be  such  a  Messiah  to  them  at  any  time.  And  yet  this 
was  all  that  the  gentile  world  could  gain  by  those  magnificent 
promises  of  the  Messiah  (as  universal  a  blessing  as  the  prophets 
had  foretold  he  should  be)  if  the  Jews'  opinion  concerning  the 
nature  of  his  kingdom  over  the  rest  of  the  world  should  take 
place.  But  since  they  judge  such  a  kind  of  government  so  great 
a  blessing  to  mankind,  it  is  pity  but  they  should  have  a  large  and 
lasting  enjoyment  of  it  themselves,  and  be  made  to  feel  what  it  is 
to  be  peeled  and  polled,  fleeced  and  flayed,  taxed  and  trod  upon 
by  the  several  governments  they  should  happen  to  fall  under ; 
and  so  find  the  same  usage  from  other  princes  which  they  had  so 
liberally  designed  for  them,  under  their  supposed  Messiah :  as 
indeed  through  the  just  judgment  of  God  they  have  in  a  great 
measure  found  ever  since  the  crucifixion  of  Christ. 

(2.)  The  other  supposition  upon  which  I  disprove  the  Messiah's 
being  such  a  temporal  prince,  is  the  unquestionable  truth  of  all 
the  prophecies  recorded  of  him  in  scripture  ;  many  of  which 
declare  only  the  sufferings,  his  humility,  his  low,  despised  estate ; 
and  so  are  utterly  incompatible  with  such  a  princely  condition. 
Those  two,  the  first  Psalm  xxii.,  the  other  in  Isa.  liii.,  are  sufficient 
proofs  of  this.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  indeed,  that  several  have 
attempted  to  make  them  have  no  respect  at  all  to  the  Messiah ; 
but  still  the  truth  has  been  superior  to  all  such  attempts.  The 
Jewish  rabbies  for  the  most  part  understand  them  of  the  whole 
body  of  the  people  of  Israel :  and  one  we  know  amongst  our 
Christian  interpreters,*  though  it  would  be  hard  to  christen  his 
interpretation,  who  will  needs  have  this  whole  fifty-third  chapter 
of  Isaiah  to  relate  only  to  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  in  the  first  and 
historical  sense  of  it :  little  certainly  to  the  service  of  Christianity  ; 
unless  we  can  think  the  properest  way  for  confirming  our  faith 
(especially  against  its  mortal  adversaries  the  Jews)  be  to  strip  it 

*  See  more  of  this  in  the  following  discourse  on  Isa.  liii.  8. 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  THE  TRUE  PROMISED  MESSIAH.  535 


of  the  chief  supports  which  the  Old  Testament  affords  it.  But 
every  little  fetch  of  wit  and  criticism  must  not  think  to  bear 
down  the  whole  stream  of  Christian,  catholic  interpreters ;  and 
much  less  the  apparent  force  and  evidence  of  so  clear  a  prophecy. 

And  therefore  to  return  to  the  rabbies^  themselves,  the  most 
learned  of  them,  after  all  such  fruitless  attempts,  understand  those 
prophecies  only  of  the  Messiah:  but  then  being  fond  of  his 
temporal  reign  and  greatness,  some  of  them  have  invented  the 
004)61'  ydpixaxov  of  two  several  Messiahs,  Messiah  Ben  David, 
and  Messiah  Ben  Joseph.  One  whereof  was  to  be  potent  and 
victorious,  the  other  low,  afflicted,  and  at  length  killed.  A  bold 
unheard-of  fiction,  and  never  known  to  the  ancient  Jewish 
church,  till  the  modern  rabbies  began  to  doat  and  blaspheme  at 
all  adventures.  But  there  is  no  shift  so  senseless  and  groundless 
which  an  obstinate  adherence  to  a  desperate  cause  will  not  drive 
the  defenders  of  it  to.  It  is  clear  therefore  that  all  the  pretences 
which  the  Jews  have  for  the  temporal  reign  and  greatness  of 
their  Messiah  is  sufficiently  answered  and  cut  off  by  these  two 
considerations :  for  to  argue  with  them  further  from  the  spiritu- 
ality of  the  Messiah's  kingdom,  as  that  the  end  of  it  was  to 
abstract  from  all  carnal,  earthly,  sensual  enjoyments,  as  the  cer- 
tain hinderers  of  piety  and  underminers  of  the  spirit,  would  be 
but  a  begging  of  the  question,  as  to  the  Jews,  who  would  con- 
tend as  positively  that  this  was  not  to  be  the  intent  of  it.  And 
besides,  the  truth  is,  their  principles  and  temper  are  so  hugely 
estranged  from  such  considerations,  that  a  man  might  as  well 
read  a  lecture  of  music  or  astronomy  to  an  ox  or  an  ass,  as  go 
about  to  persuade  them  that  their  Messiah  was  only  to  plant  his 
kingdom  in  men's  hearts,  and  by  infusing  into  them  the  graces  of 
humilitv,  temperance,  and  heavenly  mindedness,  to  conquer  their 
corruptions,  and  reign  over  their  carnal  affections,  which  they  had 
a  great  deal  rather  should  reign  over  them.  And  thus  much  for 
answer  to  their  first  exception. 

Secondly,  I  come  now  to  show  the  unreasonableness  of  the 
other,  grounded  upon  a  pretence  that  Christ  was  a  supplanter  of 
the  authority  of  Moses,  and  an  enemy  to  the  law.  And  here  for 
answer  to  this,  I  grant  that  Christ  designed  the  abrogation  of 
their  ceremonial  law,  and  yet  for  all  this  I  affirm  that  Christ  made 
good  that  word  of  his  to  the  utmost,  that  he  u  came  not  to  destroy 
the  law,  but  to  fulfil  it."  For  we  must  know,  that  to  destroy  a 
constitution,  and  to  abrogate,  or  merely  to  put  an  end  to  it,  are 
very  different.  To  destroy  a  thing,  is  to  cause  it  to  cease  from 
that  use  to  which  it  is  designed,  and  to  which  it  ought  to  serve  : 
but  so  did  not  Christ  to  the  ceremonial  law ;  the  design  of  which 
was  to  foresignify  and  point  at  the  Messiah  who  was  to  come. 
So  that  the  Messiah  being  come,  and  having  finished  the  work  for 
which  he  came,  the  use  of  it  continued  no  longer ;  for  being  only 
to  relate  to  a  thing  future,  when  that  thing  was  past,  and  so 


536 


DR.   SOUTh's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXII. 


ceased  to  be  future,  the  relation,  surely,  grounded  upon  that 
futurity  must  needs  cease  also.  In  a  word,  if  to  fulfil  a  prophecy 
be  to  destroy  it,  then  Christ  by  abrogating  the  ceremonial  law 
may  be  said  also  to  have  destroyed  it.  A  prophecy  fulfilled  is  no 
longer  a  prophecy;  the  very  subject  matter  of  it  being  hereby 
taken  away ;  so  a  type  is  no  longer  a  type  when  the  thing  typi- 
fied comes  to  be  actually  exhibited.  But  the  Jews,  who  stripped 
all  these  things  from  any  relation  to  a  spiritual  design,  thought 
that  their  temple  was  to  stand  for  ever;  their  circumcision  and 
sabbaths  to  be  perpetual,  their  new  moons  never  to  change,  and 
the  difference  of  meats  and  of  clean  and  unclean  beasts  to  be 
unalterable.  For  alas,  poor  ignorant  wretches!  all  their  religion, 
as  they  had  made  it,  was  only  to  hate  hogs,  and  to  butcher  sheep 
and  oxen.  A  religion  which  they  might  very  well  have  practised, 
had  they  sacrificed  to  no  other  god  but  their  belly.  Having 
thus  shown  the  unreasonableness  of  the  Jews'  exceptions  against 
Christ ;  I  come  now  to 

3.  The  third  and  last  thing,  which  is  to  show,  that  they  had 
great  reason  for  the  contrary,  high  arguments  to  induce  them  to 
receive  and  embrace  him  for  their  Messiah.  It  is  not  the  business 
of  an  hour  nor  of  a  day  to  draw  forth  all  those  reasons  which 
make  for  this  purpose,  and  to  urge  them  according  to  their  full 
latitude  and  dignity:  and  therefore  being  to  speak  to  those  who 
need  not  be  convinced  of  that  which  they  believe  already,  I  shall 
mention  but  two,  and  those  very  briefly. 

(1.)  The  first  shall  be  taken  from  this;  that  all  the  signs  and 
marks  of  the  Messiah  did  most  eminently  appear  in  Christ:  of 
all  which  signs  I  shall  fix  upon  one  as  the  most  notable,  which  is 
the  time  of  his  coming.  It  was  exactly  when  the  sceptre,  or 
government  was  departed  from  Judah,  according  to  that  prophecy 
of  Jacob :  and  at  the  end  of  Daniel's  weeks ;  at  which  time  he 
foretold  that  the  Messiah  should  come.  Upon  a  consideration  of 
which  one  of  their  own  rabbies,  but  fifty  years  before  Christ,  said 
that  it  was  impossible  for  the  coming  of  the  Messiah  to  be  de- 
ferred beyond  fifty  years:  a  proportion  of  time  vastly  different 
from  that  of  above  sixteen  hundred,  and  yet  after  this  also,  they 
can  hear  no  news  of  such  a  Messiah  as  they  expect.  The  same 
Daniel  also  affirms,  that  after  the  coming  and  cutting  off  of  the 
Messiah,  the  city  and  the  temple  should  be  destroyed:  as  clear 
therefore  as  it  is,  that  the  city  and  temple  are  destroyed,  so  clear 
is  it  that  their  Messiah  came  before  that  destruction.  From  all 
which  we  may  well  insist  upon  that  charge  made  against  them  by 
our  Saviour,  •  Ye  fools,  ye  can  discern  the  face  of  the  sky  and  of 
the  heavens,  but  how  is  it  that  ye  do  not  discern  this  time?"  A 
time  as  evident  as  if  it  were  pointed  out  by  a  sunbeam  upon  a 
dial.  And  therefore  the  modern  Jews,  being  pinched  with  force 
of  this  argument,  fly  to  their  old  stale  evasion,  that  the  promise 
of  the  time  of  the  Messiah's  coming  was  not  absolute  but  con- 


JESCS  OF  NAZARETH  THE  TRUE  PROMISED  MESSIAH.  537 

dirional :  which  condition  failing  upon  the  great  sins  of  the  Jews, 
the  time  of  his  coming  has  been  accordingly  deferred.  But  this 
answer  signifies  nothing :  for  the  very  design  of  the  Messiah's 
coming,  was  to  take  away  sins  and  be  a  propitiation  for  them, 
even  according  to  their  own  rabbies'  words  and  confession  ;  and 
therefore  it  is  ridiculous  to  make  the  Jews'  sins  the  hinderances 
of  his  coming,  when  he  made  the  atonement  of  sins  the  chief 
reason  why  he  should  come.  In  a  word,  if  the  Messiah  was  to 
come  within  such  a  certain  period  of  time,  which  time  is  long 
since  expired,  and  while  the  city  and  temple  were  yet  standing, 
which  shortly  after  Christ's  coming  were  demolished :  then  either 
that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  or  let  them  show  some  other  about 
that  time,  to  whom  that  title  might  better  belong. 

(2.)  A  second  reason  shall  be  taken  from  the  whole  course  and 
tenor  of  Christ's  behaviour  amongst  the  Jews.  Even-  miracle  that 
he  did  was  an  act  of  mercy  and  charity,  and  designed  to  cure  as 
well  as  to  convince.  "  He  went  about  doing  good,"  he  conversed 
amongst  them  like  a  walking  balsam,  breathing  health  and  re- 
cover}- wheresoever  he  came.  Show  me  so  much  as  one  miracle 
ever  wrought  by  him  to  make  a  man  lame  or  blind,  to  incom- 
mode an  enemy,  or  to  revenge  himself;  or  show  me  any  one 
done  bv  him  to  serve  an  earthly  interest.  As  for  gain  and  gold, 
he  renounced  it.  Poverty  was  his  fee,  and  the  only  recorapence 
of  all  his  cures:  and  had  he  not  been  sold  till  he  sold  himself, 
the  high  priests  might  have  kept  their  thirty  pieces  of  silver  for 
a  better  use.  Nor  was  feme  and  honour  the  bait  that  allured 
him :  for  he  despised  a  kingship,  and  regarded  not  their  hosannas. 
He  embraced  a  cross,  and  declined  not  the  shame.  And  as  for 
pleasure  and  softness  of  life,  he  was  so  far  from  the  least  ap- 
proach to  it,  that  he  "  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head,"  while  the 
foxes  of  the  world  had  ver^'warra  places  where  to  lay  theirs.  He 
lived  as  well  as  wrought  miracles.  Miracles  of  austeritv,  fasting, 
and  praying,  long  journeys,  and  coarse  receptions ;  so  that  if  we 
compare  his  doctrine  with  his  example,  his  very  precepts  were 
dispensations  and  indulgences,  in  comparison  of  the  rigours  he 
imposed  upon  himself. 

Let  the  Jews  therefore,  who  shall  except  against  Christ  as  an 
impostor,  as  they  all  do,  declare  what  carnal  or  secular  interest 
he  drove  at:  and  if  not,  what  there  is  in  the  nature  of  man  that 
can  prompt  him  to  an  endurance  of  all  these  hardships,  to  serve 
no  temporal  end  or  advantage  whatsoever.  For  did  ever  any 
sober  person  toil  and  labour,  and  at  length  expose  himself  to  a 
cruel  death,  only  to  make  men  believe  that  which  he  neither  did 
nor  could  believe  himself?  and  so  by  dying  in  and  for  a  lie,  must 
procure  himself  damnation  in  the  next  world,  as  well  as  destruc- 
tion in  this  :  But  if,  for  all  this,  they  will  still  make  Christ  a 
deceiver,  they  must  introduce  upon  mankind  new  principles  of 
acting:,  cancel  and  overturn  the  old  acknowledged  methods  of 

Vol.  L — 68 


538 


DR.   SOUTH's  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXII. 


nature,  and,  in  a  word,  either  affirm  that  Christ  was  not  a  man, 
or  that  he  was  influenced  by  ends  and  inclinations  contrary  to  all 
the  rest  of  mankind :  one  of  which  must  unavoidably  follow ; 
but  neither  of  them  ought  to  be  admitted,  where  sense  or  reason 
is  so  much  as  pretended  to. 

And  thus  I  have  at  length  finished  what  I  first  proposed  to  be 
discoursed  of  from  these  words,  "  He  came  to  his  own,  and  his 
own  received  him  not."    In  which  that  men  may  not  run  them- 
selves into  a  dangerous  mistake,  by  thinking  the  Jews  the  only 
persons  concerned  in  these  words,  and  consequently  that  the 
guilt  here  charged  upon  them  could  affect  none  else;  we  must 
know,  that  although  upon  the  score  of  the  natural  cognation 
between  Christ  and  the  Jews,  the  text  calls  them  by  that  appro- 
priating character  "  his  own,"  and  accordingly  speaks  of  his  coming 
to  them  as  such ;  yet  that  all  the  nations  of  the  world,  who  have 
had  the  gospel  preached  unto  them,  are  as  really  his  own  as  any 
of  the  race  of  Abraham  could  be  (if  those  may  be  called  his  own 
whom  he  had  so  dearly  bought),  and  consequently  that  we  are  as 
capable  of  having  Christ  come  to  us,  as  the  Jews  themselves 
«,were.  VAnd  accordingly  he  actually  has,  and  every  day  does 
come  to  us ;  not  in  the  same  manner,  indeed,  but  to  the  same 
purpose;  not  in  the  form  of  a  servant,  but  with  the  majesty  of 
a  Saviour ;  that  is  to  say,  he  comes  to  us  in  his  word,  in  his 
sacraments,  and  in  all  the  benefits  of  his  incarnation ;  and  those 
exhibited  to  us  with  as  much  reality  and  effect,  as  if  with  our 
very  eyes  we  beheld  the  person  of  our  benefactor.     And  then 
on  the  other  hand,  as  we  are  altogether  as  capable  of  his  coming 
to  us,  as  his  kindred  and  contemporaries  the  Jews  themselves 
were;  so  are  we  likewise  as  capable  of  not  receiving  him,  as 
those  wretches  were  or  could  be.     And  therefore  let  no  man 
flatter  himself  with  reference  to  Christ,  as  the  Jews,  in  much  the 
like  case,  did  with  reference  to  the  old  prophets;  boasting,  for- 
sooth, that  had  they  lived  in  the  days  of  their  fathers  they  would 
have  had  no  hand  in  the  blood  of  those  holy  messengers  of  God, 
Matt,  xxiii.  30.     Let  no  vicious  person,  I  say,  though  never  so 
noted  and  professed  a  Christian,  conclude  from  hence,  that  had 
he  lived  when  and  where  our  Saviour  did,  nothing  could  have 
induced  him  to  use  him  as  those  miscreants  had  done.  For 
though  I  know  that  such  men,  as  bad  as  they  are,  do  with  great 
confidence  aver  all  this,  and  think  themselves  in  very  good  earnest 
while  they  do  so  ;  yet  as,  in  general,  he  who  thinks  he  cannot 
deceive  himself  does  not  sufficiently  know  himself;  so,  in  this 
particular  case,  every  hypocrite  or  wicked  liver  professing  Chris- 
tianity, while  he  thinks  and  speaks  in  this  manner,  is  really  im- 
posing upon  himself,  by  a  false  persuasion  ;  and  would  (though  he 
may  not  know  so  much)  have  borne  the  very  same  malignity  to- 
wards our  Saviour,  which  those  Jews  are  recorded  to  have  done  ; 
and  under  the  same  circumstances  would  have  infallibly  treated 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  THE  TRUE  PROMISED  MESSIAH.  539 


him  with  the  same  barbarity.    For  why  did  the  Jews  themselves 
use  him  so?    Why?  because  the  doctrines  he  preached  to  them 
were  directly  contrary  to  their  lusts  and  corrupt  affections,  and 
defeated  their  expectations  of  a  worldly  Messiah,  who  should 
have  answered  their  sensual  desires  with  the  plenties  and  glories 
of  such  an  earthly  kingdom,  as  they  had  wholly  set  their  gross 
hearts  and  souls  upon.    Accordingly  let  us  now  but  shift  the 
scene,  and  suppose  Christ  in  person  preaching  the  same  doctrines 
amongst  us,  and  withal  as  much  hated  and  run  down  for  an  im- 
postor by  the  whole  national  power,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  as  it 
then  fared  with  him  amongst  the  Jews  ;  and  then  no  doubt  we 
should  see  all  such  vicious  persons  finding  themselves  pricked 
and  galled  with  his  severe  precepts,  quickly  fall  in  with  the 
stream  of  public  vogue  and  authority,  and  as  eagerly  set  for  the 
taking  away  his  life,  as  against  reforming  their  own.    To  which 
we  may  further  add  this,  that  our  Saviour  himself  passes  the 
very  same  estimate  upon  every  such  wicked  professor  of  his 
gospel,  which  he  then  did  upon  the  Jews  themselves,  in  that  his 
irrefragable  expostulation  with  them,  "  Why  call  ye  me  Lord, 
Lord,  and  do  not  the  things  that  I  command  you  ?"  Luke  vi.  46 : 
implying  thereby,  that  this  was  the  greatest  hostility  and  affront 
that  men  could  possibly  pass  upon  him.    And  no  doubt  but  the 
Jews  themselves,  who  avowedly  rejected  Christ  and  his  doctrine, 
out  of  any  almost  invincible  prejudice  infused  into  them  by  their 
teachers  and  rulers,  concerning  the  utter  inconsistency  of  both 
with  the  Mosaic  constitution,  were  much  more  excusable  before 
God,  than  any  Christians  can  be,  who  acknowledging  the  divine 
authority  both  of  his  person  and  his  gospel,  do  yet  reverse  and 
contradict  that  in  their  lives  and  actions,  which  they  avow  in 
their  creeds  and  solemn  declarations.    For  he  who  prefers  a  base 
pleasure  or  profit  before  Christ,  spits  in  his  face  as  much  as  the 
Jews  did :  and  he  who  debauches  his  immortal  soul,  and  prosti- 
tutes it  to  the  vile  and  low  services  of  lust  and  sensuality,  cruci- 
fies his  Saviour  afresh,  and  puts  him  to  as  open  a  shame  as  ever 
Pontius  Pilate,  the  high  priest,  or  those  mercenary  tools,  the 
very  soldiers  themselves  did.    They  do  not  indeed  pierce  his  side, 
but,  what  is  worse,  they  strike  a  dagger  into  his  heart. 

And  now,  if  the  passing  of  all  these  indignities  upon  one  who 
came  into  the  world  only  to  save  it,  and  to  redeem  those  very 
persons  who  used  him  so,  is  not  able  to  work  upon  our  ingenuity, 
should  not  the  consequences  of  it  at  least  work  upon  our  fears, 
and  make  us  consider  whether,  as  we  affect  to  sin  like  the  Jews, 
it  may  not  be  our  doom  to  suffer  like  the  Jews  too?  To  which 
purpose,  let  us  but  represent  to  ourselves  the  woeful  estate  of 
Jerusalem  bleeding  under  the  rage  and  rapine  of  the  Roman 
armies ;  together  with  that  face  of  horror  and  confusion,  which 
then  sat  upon  that  wretched  people,  when  the  casting  off  their 
Messiah  had  turned  their  advocate  into  their  judge,  their  Saviour 


540 


DR.   SOUTH'S  SERMONS. 


[SERM.  XXXII. 


into  their  enemy ;  and  by  a  long  refusal  of  his  mercy,  made  them 
ripe  for  the  utmost  executions  of  his  justice.  After  which  pro- 
ceeding of  the  divine  vengeance  against  such  sinners,  should  it 
not,  one  would  think,  be  both  the  interest  and  wisdom  of  the 
stoutest  and  most  daring  sinners  in  the  world,  forthwith  to  make 
peace  with  their  Redeemer  upon  his  own  terms  ?  And  (as  hard 
a  lesson  as  it  seems)  to  take  his  yoke  upon  their  necks,  rather 
than  with  the  Jews  to  draw  his  blood  upon  their  heads  ?  espe- 
cially since  one  of  the  two  must  and  will  assuredly  be  their  case  ; 
for  the  methods  of  grace  are  fixed,  and  the  measures  stated  :  and 
as  little  allowance  of  mercy  will  be  made  to  such  Christians  as 
reject  Christ  in  his  laws,  as  to  those  very  Jews  who  nailed  him 
to  the  cross. 

In  fine,  Christ  comes  to  us  in  his  ordinances  with  life  in  one 
hand  and  death  in  the  other.  To  such  as  receive  him  not,  he  brings 
the  abiding  wrath  of  God,  a  present  curse,  and  a  future  damna- 
tion :  but  •  to  as  many  as  shall  receive  him"  (according  to  the 
expression  immediately  after  the  text)  "  he  gives  power  to  be- 
come the  sons  of  God."  That  is,  in  other  words,  to  be  as  happy 
both  in  this  world  and  the  next,  as  infinite  goodness  acting  by 
infinite  wisdom  can  make  them. 

To  him  therefore,  who  alone  can  do  such  great  things  for  those 
who  serve  him,  be  rendered  and  ascribed,  as  is  most  due,  all 
praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion,  both  now  and  for  ever- 
more. Amen. 


THE  END  OF  VOLUME  I. 


iiiiiiiw  Lbrary 

1  1012  01090  6750 


Date 

Due 

f 

!mil:i!i!i!li!  iilliti1 


